
Qass. 



Book. 



Epochs of American History 



THE COLONIES 

1492- 1750 



m^ 



BY 



REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, LL.D. 

EDITOR OF " JESUIT RELATIONS," " EARLY WESTERN TRAVELS," ETC. 

AUTHOR OF " FRANCE IN AMERICA," " FATHER MARgUETTE," 

" HISTORIC WATERWAYS." ETC. 



WITH FOUR MAPS AND 
NUMEROUS BIBLIOGRAPHIES 



Twenty-Fifth Impression 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 

PRAIRIE AVENUE & 25TH STREET, CHICAGO 

LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 

I9I5 



^ 






Copyright, 1890, 
By Charles J. Mills. 



Copyright, 1897, 
By Longmans, Green, and Co, 



Copyright, 1910, 
By Longmans, Green, and Co. 



A II rights reserved. 



First Edition, December, 1890. 
Reprinted, September, 1891, February, 1892, (Revised), 
January and August, 1893, December, 1893, (Revised), 
August, 1894, October, 1895, J"^y> ^^Q^j August, 1897, 
(Revised), November, 1897, July, 1898, July, 1899, 
April, 1900, January, 1901, October, 1901, August, 1902, 
November, 1902, October, 1904, September, 1906, 
May, 1908, June, 1910, (IJevised), October, 1911, 
June, 1913, June, 1915. ' • 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



In offering to the public a new History of the 
United States, — for such the three volumes of the 
Epochs of American History, taken together, are 
designed to form, — the aim is not to assemble all 
the important facts, or to discuss all the important 
questions that have arisen. There seems to be a 
place for a series of brief works which shall show the 
main causes for the foundation of the colonies, for 
the formation of the Union, and for the triumph of 
that Union over disintegrating tendencies. To make 
clear the development of ideas and institutions from 
epoch to epoch, — this is the aim of the authors and 
the editor. 

Detail has therefore been sacrificed to a more 
thorough treatment of the broad outlines : events are 
considered as evidences of tendencies and principles. 
Recognizing the fact that many readers will wish to 
go more carefully into narrative and social history, each 
chapter throughsut the Series will be provided with a 
bibliography, intended to lead, first to the more com- 
mon and easily accessible books, afterward, through 
the hsts of bibliographies by other hands, to special 
works and monographs. The reader or teacher wil^ 



vi Editor's Preface. 

find a select list of books in the Suggestions a few 
pages below. 

The historical geography of the United States has 
been a much-neglected subject. In this Series, there- 
fore, both physical and political geography will re- 
ceive special attention. I have prepared four maps 
for the first volume, and a like number will appear 
in each subsequent volume. Colonial grants were 
confused and uncertain ; the principle adopted has 
been to accept the later interpretation of the grants 
by the English government as settling earlier ques- 
tions. 

To my colleague, Professor Edward Channing, I 
beg to offer especial thanks for many generous sug- 
gestions, both as to the scope of the work and as 
to details. 

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. 

Cambridge, December i, 1890. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



Upon no epoch of American history has so much 
been written, from every point of view, as upon the 
Thirteen Colonies. There has, nevertheless, been 
lacking a book devoted especially to it, compact in 
form, yet sufficiently comprehensive in scope at once 
to serve as a text-book for class use and for general 
reading and reference. The present work is intended 
to meet that want. 

In this book American colonization is considered 
in the hght of general colonization as a phase of his- 
tory. Englishmen in planting colonies in America 
brought with them the institutions with which they 
had been famihar at home : it is shown what these 
institutions were, and how, in adapting themselves to 
new conditions of growth, they differed from English 
models. As prominent among the changed condi- 
tions, the physical geography of America and its 
aboriginal inhabitants receive somewhat extended 
treatment ; and it is sought to explain the important 
effect these had upon the character of the settlers 
and the development of the country. The social and 
economic condition of the people is described, and 
attention is paid to the political characteristics of the 
several colonies both in the conduct of their local 
affairs and in their relations with each other and the 



viii Author's Preface. 

mother-country. It is shown that the causes of the 
Revolution were deep-seated in colonial history. At- 
tention is also called to the fact, generally overlooked, 
that the thirteen mainland colonies which revolted in 
1776 were not all of the English colonial establishments 
in America. 

From Dr. Frederick J. Turner, of the University of 
Wisconsin, I have had much advice and assistance 
throughout the prosecution of the work ; Dr. Edward 
Channing, of Harvard College, has kindly revised the 
proof-sheets and made many valuable suggestions ; while 
Dr. Samuel A. Green, librarian of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, has generously done similar service 
on the chapters referring to New England. To all of 
these gentlemen, each professionally expert in certain 
branches of the subject, I tender most cordial thanks. 
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES. 

Madison, Wis., December i, 1890. 



PREFACE TO TWENTY-SECOND EDITION. 

From time to time there have been several revisions 
of the text, so that it has been kept fairly abreast of 
current investigation. The bibliographies, however, 
have remained untouched since the tenth edition 
(August, 1897). The principal change in the present, 
therefore, consists in the introduction of new and care- 
fully prepared references, which will render the book of 
greater service to the student than it has been at any 
time within the past ten years. In this revision, I have 
had the valuable assistance of Miss Annie A. Nunns. 

R. G. THWAITES. 

Madison, Wis., June i, 1910. 



SUGGESTIONS. 

While this volume is intended to be complete in itself, 
compression has been necessary in order to make it con- 
form to the series in which it appears. It really is but 
an outline of the subject, a centre from which to start 
upon a study of the American colonies. The reader, 
especially the teacher, who would acquire a fairly complete 
knowledge of this interesting period of our history, will 
need to examine many other volumes ; from them gaining 
not only further information, but the point of view of other 
authors than the present — only in this manner may an 
historical perspective be obtained. The classified bibli- 
ographies, given by the author at the head of each 
chapter, have been prepared with much care. While 
perhaps few will desire to follow the topics to the lengths 
there suggested, it is urged that as many of the other 
volumes as possible be consulted, particularly those con- 
taining source material. 

Following is a hst of books which, even for a brief 
study, would be desirable for reference and comparison, 
or for the preparation of topics : 

1-5. John Andrew Doyle: English Colonies in America. 
5 vols. New York : H. Holt & Co., 1882-1907. — An analytical 
study, in much detail, by an English author. 

6-13. John Fiske: Beginnings of New England; The 
Discovery of America^ 2 vols.; Dutch and Quaker Colonies in 



X SiLggestio7is for Readers a7id Teachers, 

America, 2 vols. ; N'ew France and New England ; Old Vir- 
ginia and her Neighbours, 2 vols. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co., 1897-1902. — The best popular accounts; but while 
eminently readable and inspiring, not sufficiently thorough at 
all points, to serve as authoritative studies. 

14. Henry Cabot Lodge: Short History of the English 
Colonies in America. New York : Harper Brothers Co., 188 1. — 
Concise and readable. 

15-17. Herbert Levi Osgood: American Colonies in the 
jyth Century. 3 vols. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1904- 
1907. — The most elaborate treatment of this period, from the 
American point of view. 

If a detailed study is intended, the following volumes 
should be added to the foregoing : 

A. Bibliography. 

1. Edward Channing and Albert Bushnell Hart : A 
Guide to the Study of American History. Boston: Ginn & Co., 
1896. — A well-arranged manual for both students and general 
readers. 

2. Josephus Nelson Larned: Literature of American His- 
tory. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1902. — More detailed 
than the foregoing. Contains critical estimates of many of 
the works cited, by experts in the several subjects. 

B. General, 

3-5. Elroy McKendree Avery : A History of the United 
States and its People from their Earliest Records to the Present 
Time. 15 vols. Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1904 +. — 
Volumes I.-HI. cover the colonial period. Especially notable 
for its illustrations — for the most part, reproductions of con- 
temporary views, maps, portraits, and articles of historical 
interest. The bibliographies are quite full. 



List of Reference Books. xi 

6, 7. Edward Channing: A History of the United States. 
8 vols. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1905 -j-- — A calm, 
philosophical treatise, written with care and erudition. 

8-13. Albert Bushnell Hart, Editor : The American N'atioii. 
New York: Harper Brothers Co., 1904-1907. — The latest 
co-operative history of the United States. Each volume is by 
an author who specializes in the topic treated. Vols. II.-VII. 
are concerned with the colonial period. The bibliographical 
chapters are very useful. 

14, 15. WooDROW Wilson : A History of the American Peo- 
ple. 5 vols. New York: Harper Brothers Co., 1902. — Pop- 
ular and readable, often brilliant. Only vols. I. and II. cover 
the colonial period. 

16-20. Justin Winsor : Narrative and Critical History of 
America. 8 vols. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889. 
— A co-operative enterprise, the chapters being by different 
hands, for the most part specialists. There is a wealth of 
illustrations, notes, and bibliographical references. But much 
of the work has been superseded by later publications. Vols. 
I.-V. cover the colonial period. 

C. Special Histories. 

21, 22. Philip Alexander Bruce: Economic History of 
Virginia in the lyth Century. 2 vols. New York : The Mac- 
millan Co., 1896. — A careful, detailed study. 

23. Philip Alexander Bruce : Social Life of Virginia i?t 
the jjth Ceittury. Richmond : Whittet & Shepperson, 1907. — 
Thorough and clear. 

24, 25. Sydney George Fisher : Men, Women, and Majt- 
ners in Colonial Times. 2 vols. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott 
Co., 1898. — A readable and useful survey. 

26. Frederick Webb Hodge : Handbook of American In- 
dians north of Mexico. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 
1907. — The author, a member of the Ethnological Bureau, is 
an authority on this subject. 



xii Suggestions for Readers and Teachers. 

27-38. Francis Parkman : France and Etiglandin North 
America. 12 vols. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1851-1892. 
The titles of volumes comprising this series are : Pioneers of 
France in the New World ; The Jesuits in North America ; 
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West ; The Old Re- 
gime in Canada ; Count Frontenac and New France ; A Half- 
Century of Conflict, 2 vols.; Montcalm and Wolfe, 2 vols. ; 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 2 vols. — In spite of its age, this 
work remains the principal authority for the thrilling story of 
New France. A first-hand study, written in fascinating style. 

39. Ellen Churchill Semple: American History and its 
Geographic Conditions, Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1903. — Of first importance in understanding the causes and 
effects of the movements of population. 

40. Cyrus Thomas : The Indians of North America in His- 
toric Times. Philadelphia: G. Barrie & Sons, 1903. — The 
latest compendious treatment ; somewhat repellent in style, 
but useful for reference. The author is a well-known 
authority. 

41,42. William Babcock Weeden : Economic and 
Social History of New England, idso-ijSg. 2 vols. Boston. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890. — An admirably executed 
work. 

D. Sources. 

43,44. Albert Bushnell Hart, Editor: American 
History Told by Contemporaries. 4 vols. New York : The 
Macmillan Co., 1897, 1898. — Very useful for purposes of 
illustration. Vols. I., II., are devoted to colonial material. 

45-64. John Franklin Jameson, Editor : Original Nar- 
ratives of Early American History. 20 vols. New York : 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906 + . — Carefully edited, and in- 
dispensable for first-hand study. 

65 William MacDonald, Editor : Docnnientary Source 
Book of American History, i6o6-i8g8. New York: The Mac- 



List of Refe7'e7ice Books. xiii 

millan Co., 1908. — Useful reprints of material otherwise 
difficult to obtain. 

In addition to the above, the publications of colonial 
and town record commissions and state and local histori- 
cal and antiquarian societies contain material of the 
utmost value in the study of our colonial history. Among 
them may especially be mentioned the volumes issued by 
the Prince Society, Gorges Society, American Antiqua- 
rian Society, and the state historical societies of Massa- 
chusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; also the 
colonial records of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE LAND AND THE NATIVE RACES. 

PAGES 

I. References, p. i. — 2. Physical characteristics of North 
America, p. 2. — 3. The native races, p. 7. — 4. Char- 
acteristics of the Indian, p. 13. — 5. Relations of 
the Indians and colonists, p. 17 1-19 

CHAPTER 11. 

DISCOVERIES AND EARLY SETTLEMENTS (1492-1606). 

6. References, p. 20. — 7. Pre-Columbian discoveries, p. 21. 

— 8. Early European discoveries (1492-1512), p. 23. 

— 9. Spanish exploration of the interior (1513-1542), 
p. 27. — 10. Spanish colonies {1492-1687), p. 31. — 
II. The French in North America { 1 524-1 550), p. 32. 

— 12. French attempts to colonize Florida (1562- 
1568), p. 33. — 13 The French in Canada (1589- 
1608), p. 35. — 14. English exploration (1498-1584), 
p. 36. — 15. English attempts to colonize {1584- 
1606), p. 38. — 16. The experience of the sixteenth 
century (1492-1606), p. 42 20-44 

CHAPTER III. 

COLONIZATION AND THE COLONISTS. 

17. References, p. 45. — 18. Colonial policy of European 
states, p. 45. — 19. Spanish and Portuguese policy, 
p. 47. — 20. French policy, p. 48. — 21. Dutch and 
Swedish policy, p. 50. — 22. English policy, p. 51. — 



xvi Prelhniiiary. The South. 

PAGES 

23. Character of English emigrants, p. 53. — 24. 
Local government in the colonies, p. 55. — 25. Colo- 
nial governments, p. 58. — 26. Privileges of the 
colonists, p. 61 45*63 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE COLONIZATION OF THE SOUTH (1606-17OO). 

27. References, p. 64. — 28. Reasons for final English 
colonization, p. 65. — 29. The charter of 1606, p. 66. 

— 30. The settlement of Virginia (1607-1624), p. 69. 

— 31. Virginia during the English revolution (1624- 
1660), p. 75. — 32. Development of Virginia {1660- 
1700), p. 78. — 33. Settlement of Maryland (1632- 
1635), p. 81. — 34. Maryland during the English 
revolution (1642-1660), p. 84. — 35. Development 
of Maryland (1660-1715), p. 86. — 36. Early settlers 
in the Carolinas (i 542-1665), p. 87. — 37. Pro- 
prietorship of the Carolinas (1663-1671), p. 89. -»- 
38. The two settlements of Carolina (1671-1700), 

p. 92 ' 64-95 

CHAPTER V. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH 
IN 1700. 

39. References, p. 96. — 40. Land and People in the 
South, p. 96. — 41. Slavery and servants, p. 98. — 
42. Middle and upper classes, p. 100. — 43. Occu- 
pations, p. 102. — 44. Navigation Acts, p. 104, — 
45. Social life, p. 106. — 46. Political life, and con- 
clusions, p. 109 96-1 1 1 

CHAPTER VL 

THE COLONIZATION OF NEV^ ENGLAND (162O-1643). 

47. References, p. 112. — 48. The New England colonists, 
p. 113. — 49. Plymouth colonized (1620-1621), p. 116 



Contents, xvii 

PAGES 

— 50. Development of Plymouth (i62i-i69i),p. 120. 

— 51, Massachusetts founded (1630), p. 124. — 52. 
Government of Massachusetts (1630-1634), p. 127. 

— 53. Internal dissensions in Massachusetts (1634- 
1637), p. 129. — 54. Religious troubles in Massachu- 
setts (1636-1638), p. 132. — 55. Indian wars (1635- 
1637), p. 136. — 56. Laws and characteristics of 
Massachusetts (i 637-1 643), p. 137. — 57. Connecti- 
cut founded (1633-1639), p. 140. — 58. The Con- 
necticut government (1639-1643), p. 142. — 59. New 
Haven founded (1637-1644), p. 144. — 60. Rhode 
Island founded (1636-1654), p. 146. — 61. Maine 
founded (1622-1658), p. 150. — 62. New Hampshire 
founded (1620-1685), p. 152 112-153 

CHAPTER VII. 

NEW ENGLAND FROM 1643 ^O I7OO. 

63. References, p. 154. — 64. New England confederation 
formed (1637-1643), p. 154. — 65. Workings of the 
confederation (1643-1660), p. 157. — 66. Disturb- 
ances in Rhode Island (i 641 -1647), p. 159. — 67. 
Policy of the confederation (1646-1660), p. 161. — 
68. Repression of the Quakers (1656-1660), p. 165. 

— 69. Royal commission (1660-1664), p. 166. — 70. 
Indian wars (1660-1678), p. 170. — 71. Territorial 
disputes (1649-1685), p. 173. — 72. Revocation of 
the charters (1679-1687), p. 174. — 73. Restoration 

of the charters (1689- 1 692), p. 176 154-177 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 
IN 1700. 

74. References, p. 178. — 75. Land and people, p. 179. — 
76. Social classes and professions, p. 181. — 77. Oc- 
cupations, p. 184. — 78. Social conditions, p. 186. — 



xviii New England, Middle Colofties, 



PAGES 



79. Moral and religious conditions, p. 188. — 80. 
The witchcraft delusion, p. 190. —81. Political con- 
ditions, p. 192 178-194 

CHAPTER YX. 

THE COLONIZATION OF THE MIDDLE COLONIES (1609-I7OO). 

82. References, p. 195. — 83. Dutnh settlement (1609- 
1625), p. 196. — 84. Progress of New Netherland 
(1626-1664), p. 198. — 85. Conquest of New Neth- 
erland (1664), p. 202. — 86. Development of New 
York (1664-1700), p. 203. —87. Delaware (1623- 
1700), p. 207. — 88. New Jersey (1664-1738), p. 210. 
^89. Penns3?lvania (1681-1718), p. 215. - . 195-217 

CHAPTER X. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE MIDDLE 
COLONIES IN 1700. 

90. References, p. 218. — 91. Geographical conditions in 
the middle colonies, p. 218. — 92. People of the 
middle colonies, p. 220. — 93. Social classes, p. 222. 

— 94. Occupations, p. 224. — 95. Social life, p. 226. 

— 96. Intellectual and moral conditions, p. 229. — 

97. Political conditions, and conclusion, p. 231 . 218-232 

CHAPTER XI. 

OTHER ENGLISH NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES (1605-I750). 

98. References, p. 233. — 99. Outlying English colonies, 
p. 234. — 100. Windward and Leeward Islands 
(1605-1814), p. 236. — loi. Bermudas (1609-1750) 
and Bahamas (1522-1783), p. 238. — 102. Jamaica 
(1655-1750), p. 240. — 103. British Honduras (1600- 
1798), p. 241. — 104. Newfoundland (1497-1783), 
p. 241. — 105. Nova Scotia, Acadia (1497-1755), 
p. 242. — 106. Hudson's Bay Company, p. 243 . 233-244 



Contents. xix 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAGES 
THE COLONIZATION OF NEW FRANCE (160S-1750). 

References, p. 245. — 108. Settlement of Canada 
(1608-1629), p. 246, — log. Exploration of the 
Northwest (1629-1699), p. 247. — no. Social and 
political conditions, p. 249. — iii. Intercolonial 
wars (1628-1697), p. 252. — 112. Frontier wars 
(1702-1748), p. 254. — 113. Territorial claims, p. 255. 
— 114. Effect of French colonization, p. 257 . 245-257 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA (1732-1755). 

References, p. 258. — 116. Settlement of Georgia 
(1732-1735), p. 258. — 117. Slow development of 
Georgia (1735-1755), p. 261 258-263 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CONTINENTAL COLONIES FROM I7OO TO I75O. 

References, p. 264. — 119. Population (1700-1750), 
p 265 — 120. Attacks on the charters (1701-1749), 
p. 266. — 121. Settlement and boundaries (1700- 
1750). P' 267. — 122. Schemes of colonial union 
(1690-1754), p. 269. — 123. Quarrels with royal 
governors (1700-1750), p. 271. — 124. Governors 
of southern colonies, p. 272. — 125. Governors of 
middle colonies, p. 273. — 126. Governors of New 
England colonies, p. 275.— 127. Effect of the French 
wars (1700-1750), p. 277 128. Economic condi- 
tions, p. 278. — 129. Political and social conditions 
(1700-17 50), p. 280. — 130. Results of the half-cen- 
tury (i 700-1750), p. 282 264-284 



Index 285 



XX List of Maps, 



LIST OF MAPS. 

I. Physical Features of the United States . . . Frontispiece. 

1. North America, 1650 Endofvohime. 

3. English Colonies in North America, 1700 . End of volume. 

4. North America, 1750 End of volume. 



EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 



THE COLONIES. 

1492-1750. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE LAND AND THE NATIVE KACES. 

1. References. 

Bibliographies. — L. Farrand, Basis of American History, 
ch. xviii.; J. Larned, Literature of American History, 21-50; 
J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, I., II.; Channing and 
Hart, Guide, §§21, 77-80; C. Lummis, Reading List on Indians. 

Historical Maps. — No. i, this volume {Epoch Maps, No. i); 
T. MacCoun, Historical Geography of United States; school his- 
tories of Channing, Elson, Gordy, James and Sanford, Mace, 
McLaughlin, McMaster, and Montgomery. 

General Accounts. — Historical significance of geography of 
the United States: H. Mill, International Geography, ch. xxxix.; 
F. Ratzel, Vereinigte Staaten, I. ch. ii.; B. Hinsdale, How to 
Study and Teach History, ch. xiv. ; E. Bogart, Economic History 
of United States, introduction; E. Semple, American History and 
its Geographic Conditions; A. Brigham, Geographic Influences in 
American History; W. Scaife, America: its Geographical His- 
tory. — Topographical descriptions of the country: J. Whitney, 
United States, I. pt. i.; N. Shaler, United States, I., and Nature 
and Man in America; Mill, as above; E. Reclus, North America, 
III.; Hinsdale, as above, ch. xv. — Prehistoric Man in America* 
L. Morgan, Ancient Society; J. Nadaillac, Prehistoric America; 
J. Foster, Prehistoric Races; Winsor, as above, I. ch. vi.; E. 
Avery, United States and its People, I. chs. i., ii.; Farrand, as 
above, ch. v. — The Indians (or Amerinds): D. Brinton, Ameri- 
can Race; C. Thomas, Indians in Historic Times; F. Hodge, 



2 La7id and Aborigi?ies, [Ch. I. 

Handbook of American Indians; Farrand, as above, chs. vi.- 
xviii,; Avery, as above, I. ch. xxii.; F. Dellenbaugh, North 
Americans of Yesterday; S. Drake, Aboriginal Races of America; 
G. Ellis, Red Man and White' Man in North America; G. Grin- 
nell. Story of the Indian. The introduction to F. Parkman, Jesuits 
in North America, and his Conspiracy of Pontiac, I. ch. i., are ad- 
mirable general surveys. Briefer, also excellent, is J. Fiske's Dis- 
covery of America, I. ch. i. The mound-builders have now been 
identified as Indians. L. Carr, Mounds of the Mississippi Valley 
Historically Considered is the best exposition of this subject. C. 
Thomas, Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Moun- 
tains is useful. 

Special Histories. — Lamed, History for Ready Reference, I. 
83-1 15,' gives brief account and bibhographies of tribes; Farrand, 
as above, 2 79-2 86, does the same by geographical groups. Espe- 
cially notable are L. Morgan, League of the Iroquois, and C. Golden, 
Five Indian Nations. For detailed treatment of the aborigines of 
that section, consult H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific 
Coast, II., and Mexico, I.; J. Palfrey, New England, I. chs. i., ii., 
describes the Indians in that region; T. Roosevelt, Winning of the 
West, I. chs. iii., iv., the Southern tribes; and Parkman, Pontiac, 
the 6ld Northwest tribes. There are numerous biographies of 
chiefs, and a considerable literature on border warfare. 



2. Physical Characteristics of North America, 

Whence came the native races of America? Doubt- 
less the chain of Aleutian islands served as stepping- 
stones for straggling bands of Asiatics to cross over 
Origin of the i^^o Continental Alaska many centuries ago ; 
nauve races, others may have traversed the ice-bridge of 
Bering's Strait ; possibly prehistoric vessels from China, 
Japan, or the Malay peninsula were blown upon our 
shores by westerly hurricanes, or drifted hither upon the 
ocean currents of the Pacific. There are striking simi- 
larities between the flora on each shore of the North 
Pacific ; and the Eskimos of North America, like the 



Ch. 1.3 The Pacific Slope. 3 

West-Slope Indians of South America, have been thought 
to exhibit physical resemblances to the Mon- 
ter of conjee- gols and Malays. On the other hand, some 
'"''^' archaeologists hold that men as far advanced as 

the present Eskimos followed the retreating ice-cap of the 
last glacial epoch. In the absence of positive historical 
evidence, the origin of the native peoples of America is 
a mere matter of conjecture. 

North America could not, in a primitive stage of the 
mechanic arts, have been developed by colonization on 
Difficulties any considerable scale from the west, except 
lion°from^' ^^ t^^ ^^^^ ^^ difficulties almost Insuperable, 
the west. The Pacific coast of the country is dangerous 
to approach ; steep precipices frequently come down 
to the shore, and the land everywhere rises rapidly 
from the sea, until not far inland the broad and mighty 
wall of the Cordilleran mountain system extends from 
north to south. That formidable barrier was not scaled 
by civilized men until modern times, when European 
settlement had already reached the Mississippi from the 
east, and science had stepped in to assist the explorers. 
At San Diego and San Francisco are the only natural 
harbors, although Puget Sound can be entered from the 
extreme north, and skilful improvements have in our day 
made a good harbor at the mouth of Columbia River. 
The rivers of the Pacific Slope for the most part come 
noisily tumbling down to the sea over great chffs and 
through deep chasms, and cannot be utilized for progress 
far into the interior. 

The Atlantic seaboard, upon the other hand, is broad 
The Atlantic and inviting. The Appalachian range lies for 
thfnatul-al the most part nearly a hundred miles inland, 
approach to jj^g gently sloping coast abounds in inden- 

North Am- r •, ^ i i j 

erica. tations, — safe harbors and generous land- 

locked bays, into which flow numerous rivers of con. 



4 Land and Aborigines, [Ch. L 

siderable breadth and depth, by means of which the 
land can be explored for long distances from tide-water. 
By ascending the St. Lawrence and the chain of the 
Great Lakes, the interior of the continent is readily 
The river reached. Dragging his craft over any one of 
system. a half-dozen easy portages in Wisconsin, Illi- 

nois, Indiana, or Ohio, the canoe traveller can emerge 
into the Mississippi basin, by means of whose far-stretch- 
ing waters he is enabled to explore the heart of the New 
World, from the Alleghanies to the Rockies, from the 
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. A carrying trail, at 
the headwaters of the Missouri, will lead him over to 
tributaries of the Columbia, whereby he gains access 
to the Pacific slope ; while by another portage of a few 
miles in length, from Pigeon River to Rainy River, he 
is given command of the vast basin of Hudson Bay, — 
a labyrinth of waterways extending northward to the 
Arctic Ocean, and connected by still other portages 
with the Pacific. The Hudson River and Lakes George 
and Champlain form a natural highv^^ay from the St. 
Lawrence southward to the ocean. By the Mohawk 
and a short carrying-place, the Hudson was from early 
times connected with the Great Lakes. The Potomac, 
the Susquehanna, the Roanoke, and other Southern 
rivers can be traced northwestward to their sources in 
the mountains ; and hard by are the headwaters of west- 
The A a- Aowing feeders of the Mississippi. The Appa- 
lachian val- lachian mountains run for the most part in 
ey system, parallel ridges northeast and southwest; and 
their valley system, opening out through the Cumberland 
Gap upon the Kentucky prairies and the valleys of the 
Ohio basin, also affords a comparatively easy highway 
from the Atlantic sea-coast to the interior. 

Thus with the entrance of North America facing the 
east, and with Europe lying but little more than one half 



Ch. I.} TJie Atlantic Slope. 5 

the distance from Boston that Asia lies from San Fran- 
cisco, it was in the order of things that from the east 
should have come the people who were to settle and civil- 
ize the New World. Colonists could on this side of the 
continent found new commonwealths, yet at the same 
An inviting time easily maintain their connection with the 
Ar^an°colo- fatherland. The march of Aryan emigration 
nization. has ever been on lines little divergins: from 
due east or west. It is fortunate that the geographical 
conditions of North America were such as to make her 
an inviting field for the further migration of the race. 

The Atlantic border may be considered as the thresh- 
old of the continent. It was among its dense, gloomy 
forests of hard wood and pine that European nations 
planted their colonies ; here those colonies grew into 
States, which were the nucleus of the American Union. 
The Appalachians are not high enough seriously to affect 
the climate or landscape of the region. Their flanks 
slope gradually down to the sea, furrowed by rivers 
which from the first gave character to the colonies. In 
^ . . New England, where there is an abundance of 

Geographi- fc> ' 

caicharac- good harbors, the coast is narrow and the 
NewE^ng- Streams are short and rapid, with stretches of 
}and ; navigable water between the waterfalls which 

turn the wheels of industry for a busy, ingenious, and 
thrifty people. The long, broad rivers of the South, 
and of the Aowing lazily through a wide base-plain, the 
South. coast of which furnishes but httle safe an- 

chorage, served as avenues of traffic for the large, iso- 
lated colonial estates strung along their banks ; the 
Three grand ^utocratic planters taking pleasure in having 
natural di- ports of entry at their doors. The Hudson 
Atlantic ^ and the Potomac lead far inland, — paths to 
slope. ^^g water ways of the interior, — and divide 

the Atlantic slope into three grand natural divisions, the 



6 Land ajid Aborigines. [Ch. I. 

New England, the Middle, and the Southern, in which 
grew up distinct groups of colonies, having quite a 
different origin, and for a time but few interests in com- 
mon. The Appalachian mountains and their foot-hills 
Extractive abound in many places in iron and coal ; works 
industries, foj- t^g smelting of the former were erected 
near Jamestown, Virginia, as early as 1620, and early in 
the eighteenth century the industry began to be of con- 
siderable importance in parts of New England, New 
York, and New Jersey; but the mining of anthracite 
coal was not commenced until 1820. The soil 
of the Atlantic border varies greatly, being 
much less fertile in the North than in the South ; but 
nearly everywhere it yields good returns for a proper 
expenditure of labor. The climate is subject 
""^ ^' to frequent and extreme changes. At about 
30° latitude the mean temperature is similar to that on 
the opposite side of the Atlantic ; but farther north the 
American climate, owing to the divergence of the Gulf 
Stream and the influence of the great continent to the west, 
is much colder than at corresponding points in Europe. 
The rainfall along the coast is everywhere sufficient. 

Beyond the Appalachian mountain wall, the once 
heavily forested land dips gently to the Mississippi; 
The Missis- ^^en the land rises again, in a long, treeless 
sippi basin, gwell, up to the foot of the giant and pic- 
turesque Cordilleras. The isothermal lines in this great 
central basin are nearly identical with those of the 
Atlantic coast. The soil east of the 105th meridian west 
from Greenwich is generally rich, sometimes extremely 
fertile; and it is now agreed that nearly all the vast 
arid plains to the west of that meridian, formerly set 
The Pacific down as desert, needs only irrigation to blos- 
siope. gQj^ ^g ^jT^g rose. The Pacific slope, narrow 

and abrupt, abounds in fertile, pent-up valleys, with some 



Ch. I.] An Aryan Stronghold. 7 

of the finest scenery on the continent and a climate 
everywhere nearly equal at the same elevation; the 
isothermal lines here run north and south, the lofty 
mountain range materially influencing both climate and 
vegetation. 

There is no fairer land for the building of a great 
nation. The region occupied by the United States is 
particularly available for such a purpose, 
ummary. j^ offers a wide range of diversity in climate 
and products, yet is traversed by noble rivers which inti- 
mately connect the North with the South, and have been 
made to bind the East with the West. It possesses in 
the Mississippi basin vast plains unsurpassed for health, 
fertility, and the capacity to support an enormous 
population, yet easily defended ; for the great outlying 
mountain ranges, while readily penetrated by bands of 
adventurous pioneers, and though climbed by railway 
trains, might easily be made serious obstacles to invading 
armies. The natural resources of North America are 
apparently exhaustless; we command nearly every North 
American seaport on both oceans, and withal are so 
isolated that there appears to be no necessity for "entang- 
ling alliances " with transatlantic powers. The United 
States seems permitted by Nature to work out her own 
destiny unhampered by foreign influence, secure in her 
position, rich in capabilities. Her land is doubtless 
destined to become the greatest stronghold of the Aryan 
race. 

3. The Native Races. 

When Europeans first set foot upon the shores of 
America it was found not only that a New World had 
Theabori- t)een discovered, but that it was peopled by 
gines. a j-^ce of men theretofore unknown to civ- 

ilized experience. The various branches of the race 
differed greatly from each other in general appearance 



8 Land and Aborigines, [Ch. I. 

and in degrees of civilization, and to some extent were 
settled in latitudinal strata; thus the reports concerning 
them made by early navigators who touched at dif- 
ferent points along the coast, led to much confusion in 
European estimates of the aborig^ines. We 
into two now know tnat but one race occupied the 
divisions. j^j^^ fj.Qj^ Hudson Bay to Patagonia. Leav- 
ing out of account the Carib race of the West Indies, 
the portion resident in North and Central America may 
be roughly grouped into two grand divisions : — 

I. The semi-civilized peoples represented by the sun- 
worshipping Mexicans and Peruvians, who had attained 
Mexicans, particular efficiency in architecture, road- 
p? blJTs"^' rnaking, and fortification, acquired some knowl- 
ciifiF-Dweil- edge of astronomy, were facile if not elegant 
Indians of in sculpturc, practlscd many handicrafts, but 
M?si?ssr i appear to have exhibited little capacity for 
valley. further progress. Their government was pa- 

ternal to a degree nowhere else observed, and the peo- 
ple, exercising neither political power nor individual 
judgment in the conduct of many of the common 
affairs of life, were helpless when deprived of their 
native rulers by the Spanish conquerors, Cortez and 
Pizarro. Closely upon the border of this division, both 
geographically and in point of mental status, were the 
Pueblos and Cliff-Dwellers of New Mexico, Arizona, and 
Southern California, — the occupants of the country 
around the head-waters of the Rio Grande and Gila 
rivers, and of the foot-hills of the Desert Range. These 
people, like the Mexicans, lived in great communal 
dwellings of stone or sun-dried brick, and were also sun- 
worshippers. They made crude cloth and pottery, and 
irrigated and cultivated large tracts of arid land, but 
were inferior as fighters, and occupied a mental plane 
considerably below the Mexicans. Allied in race and 



Ch. I.J TJie Algonqinans. q 

similar in av,quirements were the tribes inhabiting the 
lower Mississippi valley, the Natchez and perhaps other 
tribes lying farther to the east. 

II. The natives of North America, called Red 
Indians, — a name which perpetuates the geographical 
The Red error of Columbus, and has given rise to an 
of No"th erroneous opinion as to their color — occupied 
America. a Still lower plane of civilization. Yet one 
must be cautious in accepting any hard-and-fast classi- 
fication. The North Americans presented a consider- 
able variety of types, ranging from the Southern Indians, 
some of whose tribes were rather above the Caribs in 
material advancement, and quite superior to them in 
mental calibre, down to the Diggers, the savage root- 
eaters of the Cordilleran region. 

The migrations of some of the Red Indian tribes were 
frequent, and they occupied overlapping territories, so 
that it is impossible to fix the tribal boundaries with any 
degree of exactness. Again, the tribes were so merged 
by intermarriage, by affiliation, by consolidation, by the 
fact that there were numerous polyglot villages of rene- 
gades, by similarities in manner, habits, and appearance, 
that it is difficult even to separate the savages into 
Philological families. It is only on philological grounds 
RedTJdia°n that these divisions can be made at all. In a 
tribes. general way we may say that between the 

Atlantic and the Rockies, Hudson Bay and the Gulf 
of Mexico, there were four Indian languages in vogue, 
with great varieties of local dialect. 

I. The Algonquians were the most numerous, holding 
the greater portion of the country from the unoccupied 
The Algon- " debatable fand " of Kentucky northward to 
quians. Hudson Bay, and from the Atlantic westward 

to the Mississippi. Among their tribes were the Nar- 
ragansetts and Mohicans. These savages were ^ude 



lO Land and Aborigines. [Ch. I. 

in life and manners, were intensely warlike, depended for 
subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, lived in rude 
wigwams covered with bark, skins, or matted reeds, prac- 
tised agriculture in a crude fashion, and were less stable 
in their habitations than the Southern Indians. They 
have made a larger figure in our history than any other 
family, because through their lands came the heaviest 
and most aggressive movement of white population. 
Estimates of early Indian populations necessarily differ, 
in the absence of accurate knowledge, but it is now 
known that the numbers were never so great as was at 
first estimated. The colonists on the Atlantic seaboard 
found a native population much larger than elsewhere 
existed, for the Indians had a superstitious, almost a 
romantic, attachment to the seaside ; and fish-food 
abounded there. Back from the waterfalls on the Atlantic 
slope, — in the mountains and beyond, — there were large 
areas destitute of inhabitants ; and even in the nominally 
occupied territory the villages were generally small and 
far apart. A careful modern estimate is that the Algon- 
kins at no time numbered over ninety thousand souls, and 
possibly not over fifty thousand. 

II. In the heart of this Algonquian land was planted 
an ethnic group called the Iroquois, with its several dis- 
The iro- tinct branches, often at war with each other, 
quois. 'pj^g craftiest, most daring, and most intelli- 

gent of Red Indians, yet still in the savage hunter 
state, the Iroquois were the terror of every native band 
east of the Mississippi, and eventually pitted themselves 
against their white neighbors. The five principal tribes 
of this family — Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cay- 
ugas, and Senecas, all statione'd in pallisaded villages 
south and east of Lakes Erie and Ontario — formed a 
loose confederacy, styled by themselves " The Long 
House," and by the whites " The Five Nations," which 



Ch. I.] Iroquois y Sioux y etc. 1 1 

tirmly held the waterways connecting the Hudson River 
and the Great Lakes. The population of the entire 
group was not over seventeen thousand, — a remark- 
ably small number, considering the active part they 
played in American history, and the control which 
they exercised over wide tracts of Algonquian terri- 
tory. Later they were joined by the Tuscaroras from 
North Carolina, and the confederacy was thereafter known 
as " The Six Nations." 

in. The Southern Indians occupied the country be- 
tween the Tennessee River and the Gulf, the Appalachian 
The South- ranges and the Mississippi. They were di- 
em Indians, vided into five lax confederacies, — the Cher- 
okees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. 
Of a milder disposition than their Northern cousins, they 
were rather in a barbarous than a savage state. The 
Creeks, in particular, had good intellects, were fair ag- 
riculturists, and quickly adopted many mechanic and 
rural arts from their white neighbors ; so that by the 
time of the Revolution they were not far behind the small 
white proprietors in industrial or domestic methods. In 
the Indian Territory of to-day the descendants of some 
of these Southern Indians are good farmers and herds- 
men, with a capacity for self-government and shrewd 
business dealing. It is not thought that the Southern 
tribes ever numbered above fifty thousand persons. 

IV. The Dakotah, or Sioux, family occupied for the 
most part the country beyond the Mississippi. They 
The Da- were and are a fierce, high-strung people, are 
kotahs. genuine nomads, and war appears to have 

been their chief occupation. Before the advent of the 
Spaniards they were foot-wanderers; but runaway horses 
came to them from Mexico and from the exploring ex- 
peditions of Narvaez, Coronado, and De Soto, and very 
early in the historic period the Indians of the far western 



12 Land ajid Aborigines, [Ch. l 

plains became expert horsemen, attaining a degree of 
equestrian skill equal to that of the desert-dwelling 
Arabs. Outlying bands of the Dakotahs once occu- 
pied the greater part of Wisconsin and northern Illinois, 
and were, it is believed by competent investigators, one 
of the various tribes of mound-builders. Upon with- 
drawing to the west of the Mississippi, they left behind 
them one of their tribes, — the Winnebagoes, — whom 
Nicolet found (1634) resident on and about Green Bay 
of Lake Michigan, at peace and in confederacy with the 
Algonquians, who hedged them about. Other trans-Mis- 
sissippi nations there are, but they are neither as large 
nor of such historical importance as the Dakotahs. 

The above enumeration, covering the territory south of 

Hudson Bay and east of the Rocky Mountains, embraces 

those savage nations with which the white 

Other tribes. , , r xt i a • i , 

colonists of North America have longest been 
in contact. North and west of these limits were and are 
other aboriginal tribes of the same race, but materially 
differing from those to whom allusion has been made, as 
well as from each other, in speech, stature, feature, and 
custom. These, too, lie, generally speaking, in ethno- 
logical zones. North of British Columbia are the fish- 
eating and filthy Hyperboreans, including the Eskimos 
and the tribes of Alaska and the British Northwest. 
South of these dwell the Columbians, — the aborigines 
of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, — a some- 
what higher type than the Hyperboreans, but much 
degenerated from contact with whites. The Californians 
are settled not only in what is now termed California, but 
stretch back irregularly into the mountains of Oregon, 
Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. 



Ch. I.] hidia^i Characteristics, 13 



4. Characteristics of the Indian. 

But of all the North American tribes, our interest in 
this book is with the traditional Red Indian, — the savage 
of eastern North America, the crafty forest warrior whom 
our fathers met on landing, and whose presence so ma- 
terially shaped the fortunes of the colonies. 

First of all, the Indian was a hunter and fisherman. 
As such, his life was a struggle for existence. Enemies 
Th Indian ^^^^ ^^ t)e driven from the tribe's hunting- 
as a hunter grounds, but the game-preserves of other 
tribes were invaded when convenient, and this 
led to endless feuds. War was not only a pastime, but 
a necessity in the competition for food. Villages were 
as a consequence almost invariably built at vantage 
points, — at inlets of the sea, at waterfalls, on command- 
ing banks of lakes and rivers, on portage paths between 
the headwaters of streams, and at river junctions. 
Hence we find that many, if not most, of the early 
white towns, built before railways were introduced, are 
on sites originally occupied by Indian villages. 

The political organization of the Indians was weak. 
The villages were little democracies, where one warrior 
held himself as good as another, except for the deference 
Political naturally due to headmen of the several clans, 
organization, or to those of reputed wis(5om or oratorical 
ability. There was a sachem, or peace-chief, hereditary 
in the female line, whose authority was but slight, unless 
aided by natural gifts which commanded respect. In 
times of war the fighting men ranged themselves as volun- 
teers under some popular leader, — perhaps a permanent 
chief ; sometimes a warrior without titular distinction. 
Much which appears in the early writings about the 
power and authority of " nobles," " kings," and " emper- 
ors " among the red men was fanciful, the authors falling 



14 Land ay id Aborigines. [Ch. i. 

into the error of judging Indian institutions by Old World 
standards. Around the village council-fires all warriors 
had a right to be heard ; but the talking was chiefly done 
by the privileged classes of headmen, old men, wise men, 
and orators, who were also selected as the representatives 
of villages in the occasional deliberative assemblies of 
the tribe or confederacy. The judgment of such a coun- 
cil could not bind the entire village, tribe, or confederacy ; 
any one might refuse to obey if it pleased him. It was 
seldom that an entire tribe united in an important enter- 
prise, still more unusual for several tribes to stand by 
each other in adversity. It was this weakness in organi- 
zation, — inherent in a pure democracy, — combined with 
their lack of self-control and steadfastness of purpose, 
and with the ever-prevailing tribal jealousies, which 
caused Indians to yield before the whites, who better 
understood the value of adherence in the face of a com- 
mon foe. Here and there in our history we shall note 
some formidable Indian conspiracies for entirely dispos- 
sessing the whites, — such as the Virginia scheme (1622), 
King Philip's uprising (1675), and the Pontiac war (1763). 
They were the work of native men of genius who had 
the gift of organization highly developed, but who could 
not find material equal to their skill ; hence these 
uprisings were short-lived. 

The strength of the Indian as a fighter lay in his 
capacity for stratagem, in his ability to thread the tangled 
The Indian thicket as silently and easily as he would an 
as a fighter open plain, in his powers of secrecy, and in 
his habit of making rapid, unexpected sallies for rob- 
bery and murder, and then gliding back into the dark 
and almost impenetrable forest. The child of impulse, 
he soon tired of protracted military operations; and in 
a siege or in the open usually yielded to stoutly sus- 
tained resistance on the part of an enemy inferior i» 



Ch. I.] Indian Characteristics, i 5 

numbers. But the colonists were obliged to learn and 
adopt the Indian's skulking method of warfare before 
they could successfully cope with him in the forest. 

The Indian was lord of his own wigwam and of the 
squaws, whom he purchased of their fathers, kept as 
Social cha- his slaves, and could divorce at his caprice, 
ractenstics. Families were not large, chiefly owing to 
the lack of food and to heavy infant mortality. The 
wigwams, or huts, — each tribe having pecuharities 
in its domestic architecture, — were foully kept, and 
the bodies of their dirty inhabitants swarmed with 
vermin. Kind and hospitable to friends and unsus- 
pected strangers, the Indian was merciless to his ene- 
mies, no cruelty being too severe for a captive. Yet 
prisoners were often snatched from the stake or the 
hands of a vindictive captor to be adopted into the family 
of the rescuer, taking the place of some one slaughtered 
by the enemy. In council and when among strangers, 
the Indian was dignified and reserved, too proud to 
exhibit curiosity or emotion ; but around his own fire he 
was often a jolly clown, much given to verbosity, and 
fond of comic tales of doubtful morality. Improvidence 
was one of his besetting sins. 

The summer dress of the men was generally a short 
apron made of the pelt of a wild animal, the women 
being clothed in skins from neck to knees ; 
in winter both sexes wrapped themselves in 
large robes of similar material. Indian oratory was 
highly ornate; it abounded in metaphors drawn from a 
minute observance of nature and from a picturesque 
mythology. A belief in the efficacy of religious observ- 
ances was deep seated. Long fastings, penances, and. 

. . sacrifices were frequent. The elements were 

eigion. peopled with spirits good and bad. Every 

animal, every plant, had its manitou, or incarnate spirit. 



l6 Land and Aborigines, [Ch. I. 

Fancy ran riot in superstition. Even the dances prac- 
tised by the aborigines had a certain religious signifi- 
cance, being pantomimes, and in some features resem- 
bling the mediaeval miracle-plays of Europe. The art of 
^, ,. . healing was tinctured with necromancy, al- 

Medicine. ^, , ^, . i i i • . , . 

though there was considerable virtue m their 
decoctions of barks, roots, and herbs, and their vapor- 
baths, which came in time to be borrowed from them 
by the whites. 

In intellectual activity the red man did not occupy 
so low a scale as has often been assigned him. He 
Intellectual was barbarous in his habits, but was so 
status. from choice : it suited his wild, untrammelled 

nature. He understood the arts of politeness when he 
chose to exercise them. He could plan, he was an incom- 
parable tactician and a fair strategist; he was a natural 
logician; his tools and implements were admirably 
adapted to the purpose designed ; he fashioned boats 
that have not been surpassed in their kind ; he was 
remarkably quick in learning the use of firearms, and 
soon equalled the best white hunters as a marksman. 
A rude sense of honor was highly developed in the 
Indian; he had a nice perception of public propriety; he 
bowed his will to the force of custom, — these character- 
istics doing much to counteract the anarchical tendency 
of his extreme democracy. He understood the value of 
form and color, as witness his rock-carvings, his rude 
paintings, the decorations on his finely tanned leather, 
and his often graceful body markings. It was because 
the savage saw little in civilized ideas to attract him, that 
he either remained obdurate in the face of missionary 
endeavors, or simulated an interest he could not feel. 



Ch. I.J Indians and Colonists. 1 7 



5. Relations of the Indians and Colonists. 

The colonists from Europe met the Red Indian in a 

threefold capacity, — as a neighbor, as a customer and 

trader, and as a foe opposed to encroach- 

The Indians ^ u- u ^- a ax £ . 

and the ments upon his huntmg-grounds. At first 

colonists. ^j^g whites were regarded by the aborigines 
as of supernatural origin, and hospitality, veneration, 
and confidence were displayed toward the new-comers. 
Indians as But the mortality of the Europeans was soon 
foes. made painfully evident to them. When the 

early Spaniards, and afterwards the Enghsh, kidnapped 
tribesmen to sell them into slavery or to use them 
as captive guides for future expeditions, or even mur- 
dered the natives on slight provocation, distrust and ha- 
tred naturally succeeded the sentiment of awe. Like 
many savage races, like the earlier Romans, the Indian 
looked upon the member of every tribe with which he 
had not made a formal peace as a public enemy ; hence 
he felt justified in wreaking his vengeance on the race 
whenever he failed to find individual offenders. He was 
exceptionally cruel, his mode of warfare was skulking, 
he could not easily be got at in the forest fastnesses 
which he alone knew well, and his strokes fell heaviest 
on women and children; so that whites came to fear 
and unspeakably to loathe the savage, and often added 
greatly to the bitterness of the struggle by retaliation 
in kind. The white borderers themselves were frequently 
brutal, reckless, and lawless; and under such conditions 
clashing was inevitable. 

But the love of trade was strong among the Indians, 
The fur- and caused them to some extent to over- 
inter-'trlbal come or to conceal their antipathies. There 
barter. had always existed a system of inter-tribal 

barter, so widespread that the first whites landing 



1 8 Land and Aborigines. [Ch. T 

on the Atlantic coast saw Indians with copper orna- 
ments and tools which came from the Lake Superior 
mines ; and by the middle of the seventeenth century 
many articles of European make had passed inland, by 
means of these forest exchanges, as far as the Missis- 
sippi, in advance of the earliest white explorers. The 
trade with the Indians was one of the incentives to colo- 
nization. The introduction of European blankets at once 
revolutionized the dress of the coast tribes ; and it is 
surprising how quickly the art of using firearms was ac- 
quired among fhem, and barbaric implements and utensils 
abandoned for those of civilized make. So rapid was 
this change that it was not long before the Indians be- 
came dependent on the whites for nearly every article of 
dress and ornament, and for tools and weapons. The 
white traders, who travelled through the woods visiting 
the tribes, exchanging these goods for furs, often cheated 
and robbed the Indian, taught him the use of intoxicants, 
bullied and browbeat him, appropriated his women, and in 
general introduced serious demoralization into the native 
camps. Trouble frequently grew out of this wretched 
condition of affairs. The bulk of the whites doubtless 
intended to treat the Indian honorably; but the forest 
traders were beyond the pale of law, and news of the 
details of their transactions seldom reached the coast 
settlements. 

As a neighbor the Indian was difficult to deal with, 

whether in the negotiation of treaties of amity, or in 

the purchase of lands. Having but a loose 

The Indian -^ . . ,i n 

as a neigh- systeni of government, there was no really 
'^°''' responsible head, and no compact was secure 

from the interference of malcontents who would not 
be bound by treaties made by the chiefs. The English 
felt that the red-men were not putting the land to its 
full use, that much of the territory was growing up as 



Ch. I.] Civilization against Savagery. 19 

a waste, that they were best entitled to it who could 
make it the most productive. On the other hand, the 
earlier cessions of land were made under a total mis- 
conception : the Indians supposed that the new-comers 
would, after a few years of occupancy, pass on and leave 
the tract again to the natives. There was no compromise 
possible between races with precisely opposite views of 
Theinevit- P^'operty in land. The struggle was inevita- 
able struggle ble, — civilization against savagery. No sen- 
or mastery, ^jj^gj^^-^j notions could prevent it. It was in 
the nature of things that the weaker must give way. For 
a long time it was not certain that a combined effort 
might not drive the whites into the sea and undo the 
work of colonization ; but in the end the savage went to 
the wall. 

Taking a general view of the growth of the American 
nation, it is now easy to see that it was fortunate that 
Good effect Englishmen met in the Indian so formidable 
of Indian an antagonist : such fierce and untamed sav- 
on^the coio- ages could never be held long as slaves ; 
nists. ^^^ \iS\MS were the American colonists of the 

North — the bone and sinew of the nation — saved from 
the temptations and the moral danger which come from 
contact with a numerous servile race. Again, every 
step of progress into the wilderness being stubbornly 
contested, the spirit of hardihood and bravery — so essen- 
tial an element in nation-building — was fostered among 
the borderers ; and as settlement moved westward slowly, 
only so fast as the pressure of population on the seaboard 
impelled it, the Americans were prevented from planting 
scattered colonies in the interior, and thus were able to 
present a solid front to the mother-country when, in 
due course of time, fostering care changed to a spirit of 
commercial control, and commercial control to jealous 
interference and menace. 



20 Era of Exploration* [Ch. ii. 



CHAPTER II. 

DISCOVERIES AND EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 
(1492-1606.) 



6. References. 

Bibliographies. — Winsor, Columbus, and Narrative and Crit- 
ical History, I. xix-xxxvii, 33-58, 76-132, 369-444, II. 153-179, 
205, III. 7-58, 78-84, 97-104, 121, 126, 184-218; Larned, Lit- 
erature of American History, 50-68, and History for Ready Refer- 
ence, I. 54-79; Avery, United States, I. 376-403; Channing and 
Hart, Guide, §§ 81-96; also bibliographical chapters in Bourne, 
Cheney, and Tyler, below. 

Historical Maps No. i, this volume {Epoch Maps, No. i); 

MacCoun; MV insor. Narrative and Critical History, I., II.; H. 
Harrisse, Discovery of North America, and Decouverte et Evolution 
Carta graphique de Terre-Neuve; E, L. Stevenson, Maps illustrat- 
ing Early Discovery and Exploration in America; maps in American 
Nation series (Bourne, Cheney, and Tyler). 

General Accounts. — On geographical knowledge of ancients, 
and pre-Columbian discoveries : Winsor, Narrative and Critical, 
I. chs. i., ii., W. Wilson, American People, I. ch. i.; Avery, I. chs. 
iii.-vi.; E. Cheney, European Background of Ameri-can History, 
chs. i.-v. — On discovery and settlement, from Columbus to 
Jamestown : M. Creighton, Age of Elizabeth (Epochs of Modern 
History); R. Hildreth, United States, I. chs. i., iii.; G. Bancroft, 
United States, I. chs. i.-v.; Winsor, Narrative and Critical, II. 
chs. i.-vii.. III. chs.\.-\y.,a.nd Columbus ; Avery, I. chs. vii.-xxi-; 
E. Channing, United States, I. chs. i.-v.; J. Doyle, English Col- 
onies in America, I. ch. iv. 

Special Histories. — E. Bourne, Spain in America; Park- 
man, Pioneers of France in tlie New World, 28-233, 296-309; 
Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, chs. i.-iii.; C. Baird, Huguenot 
Emigration to America; L. Tyler, England in America, chs. i., ii. 
For lives of explorers, consult bibhographies, above. 

Contemporary Accounts. — 'Hakinyt, Voyages; Camden So- 
ciety, Publications, Ixxxvii.; Relation of Captain Gosnold's Voy- 
age (1602); Breton, Brief and True Relation (1602); Pring, 
Voyage for Discovery of North Part of Virginia (1603); Rosier, 



— looo.] The Scandinavian Claim. 21 

True Relation (1605); Amerigo Vespuccius, Letters. — Reprints: 
Prince Society, Publications; American History told by Contem- 
poraries, I. part ii.; J. Jameson, Original Narratives of Early 
American History; American History Leaflets, 1, 3, 9, 13. 

7. Pre-Columbian Discoveries. 

The Basques, Normans, Welsh, Irish, and Scandi- 
navians are the principal claimants for the honor of 
discovering America before Columbus ; and there are 
also believers in early African migrations to the western 
continent, chiefly influenced by supposed ethnological 
and botanical evidences found in South America. The 
The Scandi- Scandinavians make out the strongest case, 
navian claim. Iceland, SO tradition runs, was first conquered 
by the Britons in the sixth century. Then followed a 
succession of Danish and Irish settlements. But the 
Celts were driven out by Ingolf, who led a colony of 
Norwegians thither in 875 and founded Reikjavik. 

The ancient Norse sagas — oral traditions, none of 
which were fixed in writing until the twelfth century, and 
most of them not until the fourteenth — mention voyages 
to the west from Iceland, and the discovery of new lands 
(n that quarter as early as 876. In 985 Eric the Red is 
said to have led colonies to this western land, — by this 
time called Greenland. The following year (986) Bjarni 
Herjulfson claimed to have been driven by contrary 
winds to a strange shore nine days' sail southwest from 
Greenland, — "to a land flat and covered with trees." 
Then comes the familiar story, that in the year 1000 Leif, 
son of Eric the Red, having come from Norway and 
introduced Christianity into both Iceland and Greenland, 
sailed away to the southwest with thirty-five companions, 
intent on visiting the country which Bjarni had discov- 
ered before him. They wintered, so the saga reads, " at 
a place where a river flowed out from a lake," called the 
region Vinland because of wild grapes growing there^ 



22 Era of Exploration^ [Ch. II- 

" erected large buildings," and then set out for Green- 
land with a cargo of timber, — a commodity much needed 
in the fishing colonies of the less-favored North. It is 
related that other explorations succeeded this, and that 
in 1007 a temporary settlement was formed in sunny Vin- 
land, where the colonists, nearly one hundred in number, 
^'had all the good things of the country, both of grapes 
and of all sorts of game and other things." Trading voy- 
ages to the new country now became frequent, say the 
sagas, and considerable shipments of timber were made 
from Vinland to Greenland. Eric Upsi, a Greenland 
bishop, is alleged, on doubtful authority, to have gone to 
Vinland in 1121; and in 1347 there is mention of a 
Greenland ship sailing out there for a cargo of timber, 
^ but this is the very last reference to Vinland by the 
Norwegian bards. 

An enormous mass of literature has been the outgrowth 
of these geographical puzzles in the sagas, and many 
writers have ventured to identify every headland and 
other natural object mentioned in them. The common 
theory among the advocates of the Scandi- 
owy, bS'^" navian claim is, that Vinland was somewhere 
not improb- qu the coast south of Labrador ; but as to 
the exact locality, there is much diversity of 
opinion. There may easily have been early voyages to 
the American mainland south of Davis Straits by the 
hardy Norse seamen colonized in Iceland and Green- 
land, and it is probable that there were numerous 
adventures of that sort. 

The sagas, like the Homeric tales, were oral narrations 
for centuries before they were committed to writing, and 
as such were subject to distortion and patriotic and ro- 
mantic embellishment. It is now difficult to separate 
in them the true from the false; yet we have other 
contemporaneous evidence (Adam of Bremen, 1076) that 



rooo-1450-] ^^^^ Race for India. 23 

the Danes regarded Vinland as a reality. Pretended 
monuments of the early visits of Northmen to our shores 
have been exhibited, — notably the old mill at Newport 
and the Dighton Rock; but modern scholarship has 
determined that these are not relics of the vikings, and 
had a much less romantic origin. It is now safe to say 
that nowhere in America, south of undisputed traces 
in Greenland, are there any convincing archaeological 
proofs of these alleged centuries of Norse occupation 
in America. 

8. Early European Discoveries (1492-1512). 

But even granting the possibility, and indeed the prob- 
ability, of pre-Columbian discoveries, they bore no last- 
ing fruit, and are merely the antiquarian puzzles and 
American curiosities of American history. The develop- 
brun wTth°* "^^'^^ °^ ^^^ -^^^ World began with the 
Columbus, landing (Oct. 12, 1492) on an island in the 
Bahamas, of Christopher Columbus, the agent of Spain. 
It was an age of daring maritime adventure. India, 
whence Europe obtained her gold and silks, her spices, 
perfumes, and precious stones, was the common goal. 
For many centuries the great trade route had been 
by caravans from India overland through Central Asia 
and the Balkan peninsula to Italy, the Rhine country, 
the Netherlands, and beyond; but the raids of the 
fierce desert tribes and the capture of Constantinople 
(1453) had closed this path, and now the trade passed 
through Egypt. With improvements in the art of nav- 
igation there arose a general desire to reach India 
by sea. Three centuries before Christ, Aristotle had 
The race taught that the earth was a sphere, and that 
for India. the waters which laved Europe on the west 
washed the eastern shores of Asia. Here and there 
through the centuries others advanced the same opinion, 



24 Erd of Exploration, [Ch. h 

and the map which the great Italian astronomer Tos- 

canelli sent to Columbus (1474) showed China to be 

but fifty-two degrees west of Europe. The idea that by 

sailing west India could be reached, was therefore quite 

familiar to the contemporaries of Columbus, although he 

The idea of Stands in the front as the one man who put his 

sailing faith to the test. The mistake lay in the cur- 

westward •, 1 . ,. , . r 1 1 

to reach rent calculations regardmg the size of the earth. 
Snal'^with Instead of being only three thousand miles to 
Columbus. the west, Asia was twelve thousand, and the 
continent of America blocked the way. It is probable 
that Columbus went to his grave still firm in the belief 
that he had reached the confines of India, — indeed, the 
names he gave to the islands and to the strange people 
who inhabited them stand as enduring evidence of his 
geographical error. 

The Portuguese, on the other hand, sought India by 
the southeast passage, around the continent of Africa, 
and had been creeping southward along the African coast 
for several years before Spain sent Columbus to reach 
Asia by the west. Thus in the race for India and the 
discovery of intermediate lands, the Portuguese and the 
Spanish had adopted opposite routes. Pope Alexander 
Pope Alex- VI. now issued his famous bull (May 4, 1493)1 
ander's bull, partitioning the un-Christian world into two 
parts, — Spain to have lands west of an imaginary merid- 
ian 100 leagues west of Cape de Verde islands, and Por- 
tugal those to the east— a simple arrangement, on paper. 
Next year, by agreement, the Hne was moved to 270 
leagues westward, but it was still supposed to be in mid- 
ocean. By this change, however, the eastern part of what 
is now Brazil fell to Portugal. 

England, although still Catholic, was not disposed to 
allow Spain and Portugal to monopolize between them 
those portions of the earth which Europeans had not 



1474-1500 T^^ Cabots, 25 

yet seen ; and we are told that there was grievous dis- 
appointment at the court of London because Spain had 
been the path-breaker to the west. In 1497 
sends^out John Cabot set sail from England armed with 
John Cabot. ^ trading charter, to endeavor to reach Asia 
by way of the northwest. He had knowledge of the 
exploit of Columbus, and may well have heard of the 
Scandinavian discovery of Vinland. Early in the morn- 
ing of the 24th of June he sighted the gloomy head- 
lands of Cape Breton, — the first known European to 
make this important discovery. It is on record that 
" great honors " were heaped upon the adventurous 
mariner upon his return to England, and that the gen- 
erous king gave " ;^io to him that found the new 
isle" — the equivalent of $700 or $800 of our money. 

The year 1498 was one of the most notable in the long 
and splendid history of maritime discovery. Young 
Portugal Vasco da Gama, of Portugal, turned the Cape 
Indfrb the °^ Good Hope, and gayly sailed his httle fleet 
southeast. into the harbor of Calicut (May 20). At last 
India had been discovered by the southeast passage : 
Portugal had first reached the goal. In May, also, Co- 
lumbus set forth upon his third voyage, during which 
he first discovered the mainland of South America ; and 
in the same month John Cabot's second son, Sebastian, 
left Bristol in the hope of finding the northwest pas- 
^ , . sage, which his father had failed to reach, and 

Sebastian °. , ,, i x-i 

Cabot's which was undiscovered until our own times 
voyage. (1850). Icebergs turned Sebastian southward, 

and he explored the American shores down to the vicin- 
ity of Chesapeake Bay. From this voyage sprang the 
claim under which the English colonies in North America 
were founded. 

Three years later (1501) a Portuguese mariner, 
Caspar Cortereal, explored the American coast south of 



26 Era of Exploration. [Ch. II. 

the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a long distance. By 1504 
we know that fishermen from Brittany and Normandy 
Newfound- were at Newfoundland, and from that time 
co"on?ai^ forward there appear to have been more or 
nucleus. less permanent colonies of fishermen there, — 
French, Portuguese, Spanish, and EngHsh, — with their 
little huts and drying scaffolds clustered along the shores. 
Newfoundland proved valuable as a supply and repair 
station for future explorers and colonizers. It was 
the nucleus of both French and English settlement in 
America. By 1578 there were no less than one hundred 
and fifty French vessels alone employed in the New- 
foundland fisheries, and a good trade with the Indians 
had been established. 

The idea that America was but a projection of Asia 
possessed all the early explorers; and indeed it was 
Searching ^ century and a half later (1728) before Bering 
for a short sailed from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic 

cut through . , 

America. and proved that America was msulated. There 
was another geographical error, which took even a longer 
time to explode, — the notion that a waterway somewhere 
extended through the American continent, uniting the 
Atlantic and the Pacific. John Smith and other EngHsh 
colonists thought that by ascending the James, the York; 
the Potomac, the Roanoke, or the Hudson, they could 
emerge with ease upon waters flowing to the ocean of the 
west. Champlain sent (1634) the fur-trader Nicolet up 
the Ottawa River and the Great Lakes into Wisconsin, 
which he thought to be Asia; and Jolliet and Marquette 
(1673) imagined they had found the highway thither when 
their birch-bark canoes glided into the upper Mississippi 
at Prairie du Chien. 

One hundred and seven years before the Pilgrims 
landed at Plymouth Rock, Balboa scaled the continental 
backbone at Darien (1513), and in the name of Spain 



1 504-1 5 2 sJ- The Spaniards, 2/ 

claimed dominion over the waters of the Pacific. With 
undaunted zeal did Spanish explorers then beat up and 
down the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, vainly- 
seeking for a passage through by water. A great stim- 
ulus had now been given to the general desire to reach 
India by sea; for the Turks were overrunning Egypt 
(15 1 2-1 520) and despoiling the caravans from the East, 
so that the manufactures and trade of western Europe 
were sadly crippled. But thus far Portugal alone held 
the key to the sea-route to India. 

9. Spanish Exploration of the Interior (1513-1542). 

This same year (1513) was notable also for the first 
visit made by Spaniards to the mainland of North Amer- 
„ , ica. Ponce de Leon, a valiant soldier worn 

ir'once da 

Leon in .out in long servicc, and who had been servmg 
as governor of Porto Rico, went to the Florida 
mainland, where a popular legend said there was a foun- 
tain giving forth waters capable of recuperating life. 
The country was ablaze with brilliant flowers, but the 
elixir of life was not there, and he returned disappointed 
In 1 519 Pineda, another Spaniard, explored the north- 
ern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. The following yeai 
(1520) a slave-hunting expedition, under Vas' 

Vasquezin ^ ^ ' . . , , * roi^ v 

South Care- quez, visited the coast of South Larolma, 
^ina- which the commander styled Chicora. The 

brilliant conquest of Mexico by Cortez (1519-1521) had 
made that hardy adventurer the hero of Christendom; 
and in the hope of rivalling his splendid achievement, 
Vasquez returned to Chicora in 1525, commissioned by 
Charles V. as governor of the country. But Chicora 
was not Mexico, and the Red Indians were of a dif- 
ferent temper from the Aztecs. The expedition met with 
disaster. While Vasquez was fighting the embittered 
savages in South Carolina, Gomez, also in behalf of 



28 Era of Exploration. [Ch. n. 

Spain, was ranging along the Atlantic coast from New- 
foundland to New Jersey, and instituting a successful 
trade with the natives. 

In April, 1528, Narvaez, with three hundred enthusi- 
astic young nobles and gentlemen from Spain, landed 
at Tampa Bay and renewed his sovereign's claim to 
Florida and its supposed wealth of mines 

N^arVclcz in 

the Florida and precious stones. Led by the fables of the 
*'^'^** wily native guides, who were careful to tell 

what their Spanish tormentors wished most to hear, 
they floundered hither and thither through the great 
swamps and forests, continually wasted by fatigue, famine, 
disease, and frequent assaults of savages. At last, after 
many distressing adventures, but four men were left out 
of this brilliant company, — Cabeza de Vaca, treasurer of 
the expedition, and three companions. For eight years 
did these four bruised and ragged Spaniards wearily 
roam through the region now divided into Texas, In- 
dian Territory, New Mexico, and Arizona, — through en- 
tangled forests, across broad rivers and desert stretches 
beset with wild beasts and wilder men, but ever spurred 
on by vague reports of a colony of their countrymen in 
the far southwest. At last (May, 1536), the miserable 
wanderers reached Culiacan, on the Gulf of California, 
whence they were borne in triumph to the city of Mexico 
as the guests of the province. 

Their coming revived the shadowy native tales of gold 
mines and wealthy cities to the north, which had for 
g . , some years been exciting the cupidity of the 
reaching conquerors of Mexico. In response to these 
from ^^"^ rumors there had been frequent reachings out 
Mexico. northward. In 1528 Cortez had despatched 
Maldonado up along the Pacific coast for three hundred 
miles. Two years later (1530) Guzman penetrated to the 
mouth of the Gulf of California and established the town 



152S-1540J Seven Cities of Cibola. 29 

of Culiacan. Cortez again had vessels on the Pacific 
in 1532, and by 1535 his lieutenants were claiming for 
him the Lower California peninsula. It is possible that 
Spanish vessels coasted northward beyond the Columbia; 
but no news of their discoveries reached the geographers 
in Europe. 

It was in 1530 that specific reports first came, through 
native slaves, of seven great cities of stone-built houses 
The "Seven ^ ^^^ hundred miles north of the capital of 
Cities of the Aztecs, where the inhabitants had such a 
profusion of gold and silver that their house- 
hold utensils were made of those metals. The search 
for " the seven cities of Cibola," as these alleged com- 
munities came to be called by the Spaniards, was at 
once begun. Guzman, just then at the head of affairs 
in New Spain, led northward a considerable expedition 
of Spanish soldiers and Indians, which suffered great 
hardships, but failed to discover Cibola. 

Cabeza de Vaca and his fellow-adventurers claimed, 
upon their arrival, to have themselves seen the seven 
Coronado's cities ; and they enlarged on the previous 
march. stories. Coronado, governor of the northern 

province of New Gallicia, was accordingly sent to con- 
quer this wonderful country which Guzman had failed 
to find. Early in 1540 he set out with a well-equipped 
following of three hundred Spaniards and eight hun- 
dred Indians. The Cibola cities were found to be 
but pueblos in Arizona or New Mexico, like the com- 
munal dwellings of the Hopis and Zunis, with the 
aspect of which we are so familiar to-day ; while the 
mild inhabitants destitute of wealth, peacefully prac- 
tising their crude industries and tilling their irrigated 
fields, were foemen hardly worthy of Castilian steel. 
Disappointed, but still hoping to find the country of 
gold, Coronado's gallant little army, frequently thinned 



30 Era of Exploration. [Ch. ii. 

by death and desertion, beat for three years up and 
down the southwestern wilderness, — now thirsting in the 
deserts, now penned up in gloomy canons, now crawling 
over pathless mountains, suffering the horrors of starva- 
tion and of despair, but following this will-o'-the-wisp 
with a melancholy perseverance seldom seen in man save 
when searching for some mysterious treasure. Coronado 
apparently crossed the State of Kansas tv/ice; *' through 
mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome 
and bare of wood. . . . All that way the plains are as 
full of crookback oxen as the mountain Serena in Spain 
is of sheep. . . . They were a great succor for the hun- 
ger and want of bread which our people stood in. One 
day it rained in that plain a great shower of hail as big 
as oranges, which caused many tears, weaknesses, and 
vows." The wanderer ventured as far'as the Missouri, 
and would have gone still farther eastward but for his 
inability to cross the swollen river. Co-operating parties 
explored the upper valleys of the Rio Grande and Gila, 
ascended the Colorado for two hundred and forty miles 
above its mouth, and visited the Grand Canon of the 
same river. Coronado at last returned, satisfied that 
he had been made the victim of travellers' idle tales. 
He was rewarded with contumely and lost his place as 
governor of New Gallicia ; but his romantic march stands 
in history as one of the most remarkable exploring 
expeditions of modern times. 

Early in the summer of 1539 Hernando de Soto, the 
favorite of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru (1532), an- 
chored his fleet in the bay of Espiritu Santo, 
follows Florida, determined to gain independent renown 
Narvaez. ^g ^j^^ conqueror of the North American wilds. 
His was a much larger and better-equipped party than 
had subjugated either Mexico or Peru. But he met 
the fate of Narvaez. False Indian guides led him hither 



1 540-1687.] De Soto. 31 

and thither through the swamps and moss-grown jungles 
of the Gulf region, and the survivors formed a sorry 
company indeed when the Mississippi River was reached 
(April, 1 541), — probably at the lowest Chickasaw Bluff, 
— after two years of fruitless wandering. -The next 
winter, still betrayed by his savage guides and harassed 
by attacks from other natives, he spent upon the Washita, 
but despairing of reaching Mexico by land, he returned 
to the Mississippi, where he died of swamp-fever (May 
21, 1542). The great river he had discovered was his 
tomb. His wretched followers, by this time much re- 
duced in numbers, descended the stream, and after great 
hardships finally reached the Mexican coast-settlements 
in September. 

10. Spanish Colonies (1492-16S7). 

A half century had now passed since the advent of 
Columbus in the Bahamas ; yet upon the mainland to the 
north, Spain as yet held neither harbor, fort, nor settle- 
ment. In the southwest, the proximity of Mexico and the 
milder character of the natives made it easier to maintain 
a settlement in what is now United States territory. In 
1582, forty years after Coronado's march, Franciscan 
Spanish friars opened missions in the valleys of the 
friars in the Rio Grande and the Gila, — the Cibola of old. 
Sixteen years later (1598) Santa F^ was estab- 
lished as the seat of Spanish power in the north ; by 
1630 this power was at its highest in New Mexico and 
Arizona, fifty missions administering religious instruction 
to ninety Pueblo towns. In 1687 the chain of missions had 
reached the Gulf of California, and then slowly extended 
northward along the Pacific coast till San Francisco, 
with its system of Indian vassalage, was established in 
1776. In Florida, after the extermination of the French 
Huguenot colony in 1564, Spain made wholesale claims: 



32 Era of Exploration, [Ch. II. 

to all that region ; but De Gourgues dealt her settle- 
ments a staggering blow, and she seemed thereafter in- 
Spain's capable of further colonizing the province. At 

poss^essfons ^'^^ close of the sixteenth century Spain held 
at close of b^t fe^^r points in what is now the United 

sixteenth '■ 

century. States, — Santa Fe in New Mexico, a few 
scattering missions along the Gila and Rio Grande, and 
St. Augustine in Florida. 

11. The French in North America (1524-1550). 

The French were not far behind the Spanish in their 
attempts to colonize North America In 1524 John 
The French Verrazano, a Florentine in the employ of 
enter the Francis I., while seeking the supposed water 
passage throngh America to China, explored 
the coast from about Wilmington, N. C, to Newfound- 
land. Ten years later (1534) Jacques Cartier, a St. 
Malo seaman, sailed up the north shore of the estuary 
of the St. Lawrence "until land could be seen on either 
Cartier at side." The next year he was back again, and 
Montreal; ascendcd to the first rapids at La Chine, 
naming the island mountain there, Mont-Rdal. Having 
spent the winter in this inhospitable region, his reports 
were such as to discourage for a time further attempts 
at colonization in America by the French, who were just 
now engaged at home in serious difficulties with Spain. 

A truce being at last declared between France and 
Spain, Cartier was made captain-general and chief pilot 
of an American colonizing expedition which Francis 
allowed the lord of Roberval to undertake. But this 
conflict of authority was distasteful to both Cartier and 
Roberval, and the former started off before his chief in 
May, 1 541. He built a fort near Quebec, but a year later 
returned to France, just before Roberval arrived with 
reinforcements for the colony. The latter remained for 



1527-1564-] The French in Florida. 33 

a year in America before returning home, and it is thought 
that he visited Massachusetts Bay in his voyages along- 
shore. France was now ablaze with civil war, 
ec. ^^^ ^^ Huguenots, with their independent 
notions, were engaging all the resources of the royal 
power, so that further American discoveries were for the 
time postponed. The Newfoundland industry, however, 
grew apace, for the Church prescribed a fish diet on cer- 
tain days and at certain seasons, and the consumption ol 
salted fish in Europe had grown to be enormous. Breton 
vessels were from the first prominent in the traffic. 

12. French Attempts to colonize Florida (1562-1568). 

Admiral Coligny, the great Huguenot leader, was am- 
bitious to establish a colony of French Protestants in 
Coii^n 's America which should be a refuge for his per- 
coiony at secuted countrymcn whenever it became desir- 
°^^ able for them to seek new seats. Jean Ribaut 
went out under his auspices in 1562, discovered St. John'? 
River in Florida, went up Broad River, named the country 
Carolina, after the boy-king, Charles IX., and left twenty- 
six colonists at Port Royal, on Lemon Island. But the 
settlers soon tired of their enterprise, and the following 
year set out for home. An English cruiser captured the 
party on the high sea when it was reduced to the last 
extremity for want of food. The more exhausted of the 
company were landed in France ; the rest were taken to 
England. 

The succeeding season (1564), another colonizing expe- 
dition, made up of Protestants, headed by Rend Goulaine 
Laudonni^re de Laudonni^re, and aided by the king, sought 
in Florida. Carolina. Avoiding Port Royal as ill-omened, 
they established themselves on St. John's River. The 
emigrants were a dissolute set, as emigrants were apt 
to be in an age when the sweepings of European jails 
3 



34 -^^'^ of Exploration. ICk. II. 

and gutters were thought to furnish good colonizing 
material for America. Laudonniere hung some of his 
followers for piracy against Spanish vessels; others were 
captured in the act by the Spaniards, and sold into slavery 
in the West Indies. What remained of the colony soon 
lost, through dishonesty and severity, the respect of the 
Indians, who had at first received the intruders kindly. 
When, in August, 1565, Sir John Hawkins, the noted 
slaver and navigator, appeared with his fleet, he was able 
to render the now half-starved settlers most needed help. 
Ribaut soon came also, with recruits, provisions, seeds, 
domestic animals, and farming implements, greatly to the 
joy of the little colony. 

But this happiness was not of long duration. The 
attention of Philip II. of Spain was at length called to this 
colony of French heretics which was gaining a foothold 
upon his domain of Florida. In August, 1565, his 
agent, Pedro Melendez de Aviles, appeared on the scene 
and announced his purpose to "gibbet and behead all the 
Protestants in these regions." Melendez established St. 
The Spanish Augustine, which is thus the oldest town in 
massacre. ^he United States east of the Mississippi, and 
then with blood thirsty deliberateness proceeded to wipe 
the French settlement out of existence. French writers 
claim that nine hundred persons were cruelly massacred; 
and the Spanish estimate is not far below that number. 

A Gascon soldier, Dominic de Gourgues, soon came 
over (1567) to avenge the wrong done his fellow-Hugue- 
TheHu-ue- ^°^^' "^^ Captured all the Spanish estabhsh- 
nots * ments left by Melendez, except St. Augustine, 
avenged y^\^^^ }^e found, the following year, that he 
could not hold his prizes, he hung the Spanish prisoners to 
trees and hastened back to France. His king, however, 
being under the influence of Spain, disavowed this act of 
reprisal, and relinquished all further claim to Florida. 



1564-1 604.1 De Monts. 35 

13. The French in Canada (1589-1608). 

The colonial policy of Henri IV. (1589-1610) was 
more progressive and enlightened than that of his im- 
mediate predecessors on the throne of France. But he 
had not yet learned what suceeeding generations were 
to discover to their cost, — that criminals and paupers 
do not make good colonists. In 1598 the familiar error 
De la was repeated, when the Marquis de la Roche 

StSven-^" ^^^^ out a company of forty jail-birds, liber- 
ture. ated for the purpose, and landed them on 

the dreary, storm-washed Isle of Sable, off the Nova 
Scotia coast, where, eighty years earlier (15 18), the Baron 
de Lery had made a vain attempt to start a colony. La 
Roche, beggared on his return home, was unable to suc- 
cor his colonists, who on their inhospitable sands lived 
more like beasts than men. Five years later the twelve 
skin-clad survivors were picked up by a chance vessel 
and taken back to France, to tell a tale of almost 
matchless horror. 

It was an age of licensed commercial monopolies, as 
well as of other economic experiments. In the year 1600 
Chauvin obtained the exclusive right to prosecute the 
fur-trade in the New Land to the west, and united with 
him a St. Malo merchant, Pontgrave. They made two 
lucrative voyages, but established no settlement. Samuel 
de Champlain, in Pontgrave's company, went out in 1603, 
Champlain's ascendlug the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal, 
first voyage. Later (this same year) De Monts, a Calvinist, 
was given the viceroyalty and the fur-trade monopoly of 
Acadia, — between the fortieth and sixtieth degrees of 
De Monts' latitude, — and religious freedom was granted 
colony. there for Huguenots, though the Indians were 

to be instructed in the Romish faith. De Monts and 
his strangely assorted party of vagabonds and gentlemen 



36 Era of Exploration, [Ch. Ii 

first settled on an island, near the present boundary 
between Maine and New Brunswick, in the fall of 
1604, but the following spring moved to Port Royal, — 
now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. This, the first French 
agricultural colony yet planted in America, suffered dis- 
aster after disaster ; but although Port Royal was aban- 
doned in 1607, the germ of colonization lived. In 1608, 
Quebec Champlain — who had, four years before, while 
established, j^ the employ of De Monts, explored the 
coast as far south as Cape Cod — set up a permanent 
French post upon the gloomy cliff at Quebec. Soon 
the Jesuits came; and by the time the "Mayflower" 
had reached New England, New France was established 
beyond a doubt, and French influence was penetrating 
inland. Wandering savages from the Upper Lakes, 
nearly a thousand miles in the interior, had at last seen 
the white man and begun to feel his power. 

14 English Exploration (1498-1584). 

England would have followed up Cabot's discovery of 
North America with more vigor had not Henry VII., 
English In- being a Catholic prince, hesitated to set aside 
Newfouid- ^^^^ Pope's bull giving the new continent to 
land. Spain. His subjects, however, made large 

hauls of fish along the foggy shores of Newfoundland, 
and in 1502 some American savages were exhibited to 
him m London. Henry VI 1 1, was at first similarly 
scrupulous; but when, in 1533, he got rid of his queen, 
Catharine of Aragon, he was free from Spanish en- 
tanglements, and aspired to make England a maritime 
nation. Among many other enterprises the northwest 
passage allured h.m, although nothing came of his ven- 
tures in that direction. With the accession of Edward VL 
(1547) a progressive era opened. The Newfoundland 



1587-1605.1 Gilbert a7id Raleigh. 37 

fisheries were now so effectively encouraged that by 1574, 
under Elizabeth, from thirty to fifty English ships were 
making annual trips to the Grand Banks. 

The most popular ventures among the nobles of Ehza- 
beth's court were the northwest passage, American coloni- 
Elizabeth's nation, and freebooting voyages. Writers of 
courtiers vovagfes and travels and cartographers sprang 

looking to- ^ ^ 1 1 .u .. . .u u • 

wards Amer- up on every hand, the most noteworthy bemg 
"^^ Richard Eden, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Richard 

Hakluyt, and Martin Frobisher. Patronized by the 
powerful Earl of Warwick, Frobisher in three succes- 
sive voyages (i 576-1 578) vainly sought gold in Labra- 
dor. Francis Drake, on his famous buccaneering tour 
around the world, explored the Pacific coast of the 
United States as far north as Cape Blanco (1579), 
unsuccessfully searching for a short cut by water through 
the continent. 

Gilbert saw that Newfoundland must thereafter be 
considered as the nucleus of English settlement in Amer- 
Gilbert's ica ; and in 1579 Sir Humphrey, himself a 
voyage. soldier and a member of Parliament, accom- 

panied by his step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, went 
oat to lead the way. Storms and other disasters drove 
them back, and it was 1583 before another squadron 
could be equipped. Raleigh remained in England ; but 
Gilbert landed at St. John's, where he found that four 
hundred vessels of various nationalities, mainly Spanish 
and Portuguese, were annually engaged in the fisheries. 
He took possession of the island for the queen, exam- 
ined the neighboring mainland, and freighted his ships 
witli glistening rock, ignorantly declared by an unskilful 
expert accompanying the expedition to contain silver. 
Upon the return voyage the vessel carrying Gilbert was 
lost, the companion ship, with its worthless cargo, 
reaching Falmouth safely. 



38 Era of Exploration. [Ch. IL 

15. English Attempts to colonize (1584-1606). 

Under Raleigh's auspices two vessels set out in r 584, 
commanded by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. 
Amadasand They landed at the island of Roanoke, the 
Barlowe. southernmost of the reefs enclosing Albemarle 
Sound, in North Carolina; but although charmed with 
the country, which they declared to be " the most plen- 
tiful, sweet, fruitful, and wholesome of all the world," 
and well treated by the Indians, — "people most gentle, 
loving, and faithful," — they made no settlement, and 
returned to England. Raleigh, however, was pleased by 
the reports brought back; he was knighted, his claim 
was confirmed, he named the country Virginia, in token 
of his virgin queen, and he entertained visions of estab- 
lishing a considerable province there, and of enjoying a 
comfortable rent-roll. 

In 1585, aided by the queen, he sent out seven ves- 
sels and one hundred and eight colonists, the fleet being 
Raleigh's Commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, and the 
first colony, intending settlers by Ralph Lane, a soldier of 
much merit. Few maritime enterprises were sent out by 
England in the Elizabethan age that did not include in 
their orders a project for preying on Spanish commerce 
by the way ; for our ancestors were as yet not far re- 
moved in this regard from the spirit of the old Norse 
pirates. Grenville therefore sailed around by the Cana- 
ries, picked up Spanish prizes partly to meet the cost of 
the undertaking, and in due time anchored at Wocoken, 
whence he proceeded to Roanoke island. 

With the colonists was Manteo, a native who had gone 
to England with some former expedition ; and the good- 
natured fellow secured for his new friends a warm recep- 
tion on the part of the aborigines. But Grenville before 
his return treated them harshly, leaving to them and the 



1492- 1 6o6.] RaleigJi s First Colony. 39 

colonists a legacy of mutual distrust and grievances. In 
March, 1586, Lane ascended the Roanoke River, hoping 
to find rich ores and pearls in the upper country; for the 
deceitful savages, wishing to divide the white men's 
forces, had told him that the stream had its source near 
the western ocean, in a country abounding with these 
articles, and encouraged his expedition with promises of 
assistance. The enterprise proved full of hardship and 
peril, and the governor returned just in time to check a 
conspiracy to attack the garrison. 

Lane had employed his men in frequent explorations, 
their journeyings reaching on the north to Chesapeake 
Bay and Elizabeth River, on the south to the Secotan. 
But the situation became irksome. The spirit of ad- 
venture and wealth-seeking prevailed among the colonists ; 
it was not a community calculated for the uneventful and 
toilsome prosecution of agriculture ; and before long the 
fretful disease of homesickness prevailed on the island of 
Roanoke. 

In June, 1586, Sir Francis Drake appeared with twenty- 
three vessels. He had made a rich haul from Spanish 
treasure-ships in the West Indies, and had turned aside 
on his return trip, curious to see how his friend Raleigh's 
colony fared. Yielding to the importunities 
prise aban- of the Settlers, he took them aboard his 
doned. flgg^ ^^^ carried them back to England. They 

had been gone from Roanoke but a few days, when a 
ship, bringing supplies sent out by Raleigh, sailed into the 
inlet, only to find the place deserted. In another fort- 
night, Grenville appeared with three well-furnished ships, 
and left fifteen men on the island to renew the colonizing 
experiment. 

Raleigh, displayed most remarkable persistence. He 
was undismayed by this long chapter of disasters. Men 
on whose judgment he relied brought back good reports 



40 Era of Exploration. [Ch. il. 

from the site of the ill-fated colony, and again he fitted 
out an expedition, — this time entirely at his own charge, 
Ralei h's ^°^ Elizabeth had had enough of the experi- 
second ment. It was in July, 1587, when John White 

attempt. arrived with Raleigh's new colonists off the 
shores of North Carolina. At Roanoke, deer were quietly 
grazing in a field fertilized by the bones of Grenville's 
contingent of the year before, and the fort was in ruins. 
Governor White re-estabhshed the settlement. 

The 1 8th of August the daughter of White, Eleanor 
Dare, gave birth to a daughter, called Virginia, after 
the country, — the first child of English par- 
Virginia ents born on the soil of the United States. 
^^'■^- A few days later. White left for England, — 

ostensibly for recruits and supplies, the colony which he 
left behind being composed of eighty-nine men, seven- 
teen women, and two children. But England was now 
threatened with invasion from Spain ; the energy and 
resources of the island were being mustered in its de- 
fence ; Raleigh, Drake, Grenville, Frobisher, Hawkins, 
and the rest were engaged in preparing to resist the 
enemy. It was no time for colonization schemes. The 
Armada scattered, the father of Enghsh colonization in 
America found himself ruined, having spent ^40,000 
in his several fruitless ventures. Still hopeful, he next 
adopted a scheme of making large grants in Virginia to 
merchants and adventurers, and in this manner obtained 
some aid. 

In 1 59 1 White returned to Roanoke, to find it again 
deserted, with no traces of his daughter or of the other 
colonists. They had probably been overcome by the 
Wreck of Indians, and those whose lives were spared 
the colony, adopted into the neighboring tribes. In spite 
of the many costly attempts, the sixteenth century closed 
with no English settlement on the shores of America. 



i6o2-i6o6.] Gosnold and Gorges. 41 

Among the principal causes of this early failure in 
Virginia were the improper character and spirit of the 
Causes of emigrants, who, instead of looking to the soil 
urM thu?''* as the chief source of supplies, expected to 
far. find rich mines, or tribes possessing gold, and 

relied upon England for the necessaries of life ; they had 
not enough occupation to keep them from brooding over 
their isolation, and by their harshness they turned the 
Indians into harassing enemies. 

Bartholomew Gosnold has had the reputation of being 
the first mariner who set out for America on a direct 
Gosnold's voyage from England, thus avoiding the West 
voyages. Indies and the Spanish, and saving nearly a 
thousand miles; but others before him had taken the di- 
rect course, — notably Verrazano (1524). In 1602, while 
trading with the Indians, Gosnold explored the coast from 
Cape EHzabeth, Maine, to the Ehzabeth Islands, on his 
Pring in way landing upon and naming Cape Cod. The 
Maine, following year Martin Pring discovered many 

harbors and rivers in Maine. In 1605 George Wey- 
and We - rno^th, sent by the Earl of Southampton and 
mouth at Lord Arundel, explored from Cape Cod north- 
^^* ° * ward. He carried back with him several kid- 
napped natives, three of whom he gave to Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges be- Gorges, governor of the English port of Ply- 
comes in- mouth. Gorges was particularly struck with the 

terested. .ji, r iti -i 

reported abundance of good harbors in the 
north, compared with the scarcity of such in Virginia and 
Carolina, and became at once strongly interested in New 
England exploration. 

Public attention in England had by this time become 
strongly attracted to the northern region as probably the 
most desirable for future experiments in colonization; it 
was pointed out with much force that the lack of good 
anchorage was one of the reasons why the southern 



42 Era of Exploration. |Ch. IL 

attempts had failed. Conditions in England, too, had at 
last so changed as to make it possible to undertake col- 
onization with better assurances of success. But New 
England was not destined to be the site of the first per- 
manent plantation. That honor was reserved for what is 
now Virginia. 

16. The Experience of the Sixteenth Century 
(1492-1606). 

In reviewing the period from 1492 to 1606, — prac- 
tically the sixteenth century, — we see that it was notable 
Sixteenth for the extraordinary interest displayed in dis- 
ceytui-y not- covery and settlement. Attention has been 
interest in Called to the part played by the general de- 
aS^iuie- ^^^^ ^^ Europeans to secure the trade of India. 
ment. gut we must not forget as well that, as a fea- 

ture of the great Renaissance and Reformation movement, 
the spirit of investigation was abroad, in religion, phi- 
losophy, and the arts ; there had grown up great com- 
mercial and trading cities, in which the successful foreign 
merchant became a part of a powerful aristocracy ; pop- 
ular imagination had been fired by traders' stories of 
India, China, and Japan; there was an eagerness to 
reach out into the regions of mystery, to enlarge the 
horizon of human knowledge. The effect was greatly 
to increase skill in navigation, to build up a merchant 
marine, and — it being an age of universal freebooting — 
to cultivate an experience in naval warfare which was 
a preparation for the great sea-fights of the eighteenth 
century. 

Of the three nations which, in the sixteenth century, 
attempted to colonize America north of the Gulf of 
Mexico, all had practically failed. Spain had with com- 
parative ease conquered the unwarlike natives of Mexico 
and Peru upon their cultivated plains. That very ease 



1492- 1 6o6.] Causes of Faihtre, 43 

took away the disposition, even had her people been 
capable of the effort, slowly and painfully to subdue 
Causes of *^^^ tangled forests and savage warriors of 
failure in Florida, with no other promise of reward 
American than the possession of unredeemed soil. Not 
colonization, suited to the task, she utterly wasted alike the 
resources of the home government applicable to coloni- 
zation, and those of the established colonies. France \ 
had failed because of dissensions at home, inferior 
powers of organization, the want of the proper coloni- 
zing temper, and the severity of the climate in that 
portion of the New World which she had seized upon 
as the seat of her colonies. English colonization thus 
far had been unproductive because there was a want of 
understanding of the difficulties, because of the selection 
of colonists who lacked experience in agriculture, be- 
cause poor harbors were generally chosen, because there 
was difficulty in keeping up communications with the 
mother-land, because the resident leaders lacked cour- 
age and had not the staying qualities which were in 
after years the salvation of the Plymouth Pilgrims. But 
the effect of these early English efforts was important 
in giving the people needed training in navigation and 
colonization, and a knowledge of the country. 

Taking a general view of America at the close of the 
sixteenth century, we find Spain in undisputed posses- 
European sion of Peru, Central America, the country 
AmTr?c^ west and northwest of the Gulf of Mexico, 
i6oo. the greater part of the West Indies, and the 

coast of what is now Florida; while thev claimed all 
of the southern third of the present United States 
and th-e greater part of South America, except Guiana 
and Brazil. The French laid claim to the basin of the 
St. Lawrence and to the coast northward and south- 
ward, but their colonies were not as yet permanently 



44 •^^'^ of Exploration. [Ch. it 

planted; the attempts to make Huguenot settlements 
in Brazil (1555) and Florida had been unsuccessful, 
and French claims there had been abandoned under 
Spanish influence. It was not until 1609, when Hud- 
son sailed up the river named for him, that the Dutch 
laid any claims to American soil. Cabral discovered 
Brazil for the Portuguese in 1500; but when Portugal, 
eighty years later, became the dependency of Spain 
(a condition lasting sixty years), her South American 
colonies were harried by the Dutch, though she did not 
relinquish control of them. The English claimed all the 
North American coast from Newfoundland to Florida, 
and of course through to the Pacific, no one then enter- 
taining the belief that the continent was many hundred 
miles in width; but as yet none of their colonizing efforts 
had been successful. The Bermudas, Bahamas, and Bar- 
bados were neither claimed nor settled by Englishmen 
until the seventeenth century. The great Mississippi 
basin had been visited by a few Spanish overland wan- 
derers, but as yet was practically forgotten and unclaimed, 
except so far as it was included in the undefined Spanish 
and English transcontinental zones ; the Hudson Bay 
country, Oregon, and Alaska were also undiscovered 
lands. A few thousand miles of American coast-line 
were now familiar to European explorers ; but of the 
interior of the continent scarcely more was known than 
might be seen over the tree-tops from the mast-head of 
a caravel. 



Ch. III.] • Colojiial Policy. 45 

CHAPTER III. 
COLONIZATION AND THE COLONISTS. 



17. References. 

Bibliographies. — C. Lucas, Introduction to Historical Geog- 
raphy of British Colonies, vii., viii.; Winsor, Narrative and Critical 
History, III., V.; Larned, Literature of American History, 67-76; 
Avery, United States, II. 409-411 ; E. Greene, Provincial America, 
ch. xix.; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 92, 104, no. 

Historical Maps. — No. 2, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 2); 
MacCoun, Winsor, and Avery. 

General Accounts. — Colonization : Lucas, as above (col- 
onial policies of the European states); J. Seeley, Expansion of 
England, chs. iii., iv.; A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, chapter "Of 
Colonies "; H. Morris, History of Colonization; A. Snow, Ad- 
ministration of Dependencies, chs. i.-v. — English movement : G. 
Beer, Origin of British Colonial System; H. Merivale, Coloniza- 
tion and the Colonies; H. Egerton, Short History of British Colo- 
nial Policy, and Origin and Growth of English Colonies; W. 
Woodward, Expansion of British Empire; C. Dilke, Greater 
Britain, and Problems of Greater Britain; E. Creasy, Imperial 
and Colonial Constitutions ; Mill, Colonial Constitutions ; J. Toner, 
Colonies of North America; J. Marsden, Early Puritans. — • 
Free institutions imported by American colonists, and colonial 
government generally: Greene, Provincial Governor; E. Eggle- 
ston, Transit of Civilization, and Beginners of a Nation; A. Low, 
American People; Wilson, The State, §§ 832-864; E. Freeman, 
English People in its Three Homes, lecture vi.; H. Taylor, 
English Constitution, 1 5-48 ; Channing, Town and County Govern- 
ment; C. Bishop, History of Elections in the Colonies. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Published records (chiefly by 
historical societies) of the several American colonies. See also 
Hakluyt, Voyages; HoWnshcd, Chronicles. — Reprints: E. Arber, 
Pilgrim Colonists; A. Brown, Genesis of United States; W. Mac- 
donald. Documentary Source Book of American History; Ameri- 
can History told by Contemporaries, I. part iii. 

18. Colonial Policy of European States. 
The time had now come for making the first perma- 
nent English settlement in America. Before we proceed 



46 Colonization and Colonists, • [Ch. III. 

to the story of that famous enterprise, however, it will be 
well hastily to summarize the colonial policies of those 
European States which have at various times established 
plantations in the New World. It will be well also to 
know what sort of people were the seed of English colo- 
nization, and what institutions they brought with them as 
the foundations of American commonwealths. 

Four motives, working either singly or conjointly, lead 
to colonization, — the spirit of adventurous enterprise, 
Motives of the desire for wealth, economic or pohtical 
colonization, discontent, and religious sentiment. For in- 
stance, Columbus was quite as much a religious enthu- 
siast desirous of spreading the gospel in new lands as 
he was an adventurer; the southern group of English 
colonies in America was in the main the outgrowth of a 
trading spirit working in conjunction with economic dis- 
tress in England ; and the Puritan migration to New 
England was impelled by economic and political causes, 
as well as by religious. 

In a large sense the planting of a colony means merely 
the expansion of the parent State. But this was not the 
Colonization ^iew formerly taken by European govern- 
istheex- ments. For a long time colonies were treated 

pansion of , , . r 1 1 . • ^ 

the parent as dependencies of the mother-country, exist- 
S^^^^' ing chiefly to furnish revenue to the latter, 

either directly in taxes or indirectly in increased trade. 
It was because the English colonists in America, taking 
though early a broad view of their relationship to Great 
tl'i^^^M^ Britain, wished to be treated as free Eng- 

source or ' ° 

revenue to it lishmen in Greater Britain, and not merely as 
revenue-producing subjects, that they revolted in 1776. 
Colonial history is nearly everywhere the history of this 
obtuseness of vision on the part of 4he home government, 
and it is full of most painful details. 



i492~i6oo.] Spam and Portugal, 47 

19. Spanish and Portuguese Policy. 

It chanced that the American discoveries made by- 
Spain were in the region of rich and physically weak 

^ . nations. Consequently she won her vast do- 

Spam. . . ... 

mmions on this contment by sweepmg con- 
quest rather than by commercial growth. This was in 
sharp contrast with the slow, steady planting of New 
England, where the settlers were obliged to conquer a 
sterile soil and brave a rigid climate, where they were 
hemmed about with savage neighbors who disputed 
their establishment, and where they met as well the 
sharp opposition, first of the Dutch, and then of the 
French, — the latter, in their desire for the Mississippi 
valley, jealously endeavoring to restrict Englishmen to the 
Atlantic slope. The Spaniards were brave, and they 
could rule with severity. But they thirsted for adven- 
ture, conquest, and wealth, for which their appetite was 
early encouraged; their progress in Mexico, Peru, and 
the West Indies had been too rapid and brilliant for 
them to be satisfied with the dull life and patient devel- 
opment of an agricultural colony. Had they known in 
advance the conditions of success on the North Amer- 
ican mainland, it is probable that we should never have 
been obliged to chronicle the splendid but disastrous 
expeditions of Narvaez and De Soto. They would 
doubtless have made no attempt to subdue a land which 
offered nothing for such appetites as theirs. Their aims 
were sordid, their State was loosely knit, their commer- 
cial policy was rigidly exclusive, their morals were lax, 
and their treatment of the savages was cruel, despite the 
tendency of the colonists to amalgamate with the latter, 
and thus to descend m the scale of civilization. The 
effect of the specie so easily acquired in Mexico and 
Peru was to make S^ain rapidly rich without manufac* 



48 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

tures ; but her people were thereby demoralized and 
unfitted for the ordinary channels of employment, and 
her rulers were corrupted and enfeebled : in the end the 
country was impoverished, declining as rapidly as it had 
risen. Spain's glory was fast waning both in the New 
and the Old World at the close of the sixteenth century, 
and France was ready, in the march of events, to suc- 
ceed to her place as the leading nation of Europe. 
France was to be supplanted a century later by England, 
which was not known as a great power until the dis- 
persion of the Armada. We have seen that in this his- 
torical progress Spain unwittingly helped England by 
driving the French out from Florida and Carolina ; 
nevertheless the decline of Spain left France the most 
formidable rival of the Enghsh. 

The Portuguese, though impelled by a similar passion 
for conquest, were more eager for trade than their power- 
ful and often domineering Spanish neighbors, 
or uga . 'pi^ey oppressed their colonies, were greedy in 
their commercial strivings, maltreated the weak natives of 
Brazil and the West Indies, lacked administrative ability 
and the spirit of progress, and suffered from want of a 
well-balanced colonial system. The Portuguese colonies 
in America had much the same history as the Spanish, 
their situation being similar. Brazil was of no great impor- 
tance until the early years of the nineteenth century, 
and made herself independent in 1822, — thus following 
the lead of Mexico, which set up an independent govern- 
ment the previous year. 

20. French Policy. 

France had no permanent colonies in America before 
the seventeenth century. Port Royal was planted in 
1604, and Quebec not until four years later. The French 
were good fighters, enterprising, and while not eager 



1497-1763I France. 49 

to colonize, were capable of adapting themselves to new 
conditions ; they had the capacity to carry their ideas 
with them across the seas, and they readily 
assimilated with the aborigines. While freely 
intermarrying with the natives, unlike the Spaniards 
they rather improved the savage stock than were de- 
graded by it. They had the faculty of making the red 
barbarian a boon companion, and of inducing him to 
serve them and fight for them ; indeed, since their colo- 
nizing enterprises were based on the fur-trade, their 
opposition to the advance of English agricultural posses* 
sion was, like that of the Indians, fundamental. The 
French and the savages were therefore united in a 
common cause against a common foe. 

The Breton and Norman merchant-seamen who went 
out to Newfoundland and carried on fisheries and the 
fur-trade paved the way for the future throng of emi- 
grants. As colonizers the French worked quietly and 
persistently, and would have succeeded, had not their 
enterprises been ruined by their unfortunate political and 
ecclesiastical policy and the mismanagement of their 
rulers. Louis XIV. was capricious and extravagant. 
His court was a nest of intrigue, corruption, pecula- 
tion, jealousies, and dissensions. The Huguenots, who 
represented the industrial classes, began the French 
colonization of America; but we have seen how sadly 
their government neglected them in Florida. Finally, 
when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) re- 
sulted in driving them from home, and they were eager 
to join their lot with that of their countrymen in 
Canada, priest-rule prescribed their dehberate exclusion 
from the colonies, — which they could have made a New 
France in fact, — and thus forced them to contribute their 
strength to the rival English settlements farther down the 
coast. The government was in some respects over' 
4 



50 Colonization aitd Colonists, [Ch. hi. 

liberal to its North American colonies, — it aided them 
financially to an extent unknown elsewhere ; but thej 
were not self-governed, and the king continually inter- 
fered with the commercial companies, which in a large 
measure controlled the colonies, so that a favor granted 
through corrupt influences to-day might to-morrow be 
revoked by counter-influences equally corrupt. Pater- 
nalism, centralization, bureaucratic government, official 
rottenness, instability of system, rehgious exclusiveness, 
and a vicious system of land-tenure were the prime causes 
of the ruin of New France ; although we must not forget 
that the centre of its power had been planted in an in- 
hospitable climate, and that its far-reaching water-system 
tempted the inhabitants into the forests and cultivated the 
fur-trade at the expense of agriculture, thereby placing 
the province at a disadvantage from the start. 

21. Dutch and Swedish Policy. 

The burden of over-population wdth which Spain, 
France, and Portugal were troubled, and to relieve the 
pressure of which was one of the motives of 
their colonizing efforts, was not felt by Hol- 
land ; for despite the fact that she sustained a more 
dense population than any other European State, her 
citizens were prosperous. They were not stirred, hke 
neighboring peoples, by the impulse of emigration. Pre- 
eminently a trading nation, Holland sought commerce 
rather than extension of empire. Long the chief carrier 
of Europe before striking into a broader field, she fol- 
lov/ed in the steps of the Portuguese, and by the opening 
of the seventeenth century took rank as a colonizing 
power. Her most fruitful labors were in the East rather 
than in the West. It was in the attempt to find the 
nortliwest passage to India that Hudson discovered the 
river which bears his name. With the Dutch, though 



1609-1 664-1 Holland and Sweden. 5 1 

religious reformers, religion was secondary to trade. So 
long as trade was good, they were patient under insult 
and outrage. Individually they made but little impress 
upon the community. Commerce was chiefly conducted 
through large chartered companies, minutely managed 
in Holland. Dutch colonies declined because their com- 
mercial system was non-progressive and unsound: they 
appear to have been unable to rise out of the trader 
state. Yet we must not forget that Holland was of 
small size and had overbearing, jealous neighbors ; her 
long and heroic struggle with Spain tended greatly to 
delay her efforts to trade in and colonize the New 
World. 

The Swedish colony on the Delaware was planned by 
authority of Gustavus Adolphus on broad, liberal prin- 
ciples ; he hoped it would become " the jewel 
of his kingdom." But while it throve for a 
time and gave much promise of endurance, the Dutch 
soon overpowered it. Had the Swedish monarch lived 
to carry out the design, doubtless he would have proved 
that Scandinavians could successfully maintain an inde- 
pendent province in the New World. Like the Germans, 
however, they have in later years been in the main con- 
tent to colonize as the subjects of foreign governments. 

22. English Policy. 

England remains the only country which planted pop- 
ulous colonies within the present United States and re- 
tained them long after they were planted. Her 
"^ ^" ■ insular position and fine harbors have given her 
a race of sailors ; her climate has proved favorable for 
rearing a hardy people, who, secure in their boundaries 
and not necessarily entangled in Continental affairs, have 
been left free to develop and to push independent enter- 
prises. As regards American exploration, the fact that 



52 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. iil 

England is the westernmost State in Europe had at first 
much to do with her pre-eminence. Until the close of 
the sixteenth century England's resources were slender, 
and her government was not desirous of incurring the 
hostility of stronger European neighbors by poaching too 
freely on their colonial preserves. Cabot went out at 
his own cost. Drake's operations, while adding to the 
glory of England, and directly favored by Queen Eliza- 
beth, were continually endangering her with Spain. But 
in the face of all discouragements, the sixteenth century 
was a notable training period for English sea-rovers. 
The records of the age are aglow with the deeds of the 
Cabots, Frobisher, Davis, Drake, Cavendish, Gilbert, 
Raleigh, Grenville, and their hke, who, while invariably 
failing in their persistent efforts at colonization, were 
charting the American coast-line, making the New World 
familiar to their countrymen, and striking out shorter 
paths across the Atlantic. At first outstripped by other 
European nations, England was becoming one of the 
principal maritime powers when the seventeenth century 
began. Spain, weakened by the defection of the Nether- 
lands, and still further humiliated by the defeat of the 
Armada (1588), was by this time showing evidences of 
decay, and France was the growing rival in the West. 

English occupation in North America, like the 
French, began with the fishermen who, following in 
The English Cabot's wake, early sought the banks of New- 
trading foundland. They were courageous, business- 
^^'" hke men, who soon supplemented their caHing 
as fishermen with a profitable native trade in peltries. 
The trading spirit has always been deeply implanted in 
the Teutonic races ; when England had gathered suffi- 
cient strength to make it discreet to assert herself, we 
find that her reachings out for wider territory took the 
shape of commercial enterprise. The romantic adven- 



1 500-1700.] English Character, 53 

turers of the age of Elizabeth, as much freebooters as 
explorers, were now succeeded by prosaic trading com- 
panies, which undertook to plant colonies along the 
Atlantic coast. In doing this they were impelled in 
part by a desire to relieve England from some of her 
surplus population ; but in the main the colonies were to 
serve as trading and supply stations. 

In aiding these corporations, which succeeded after a 
fashion in planting colonies, but failed for the most part 
Scanty State ^"^ reaping profits, the State expected increased 
^^^- revenue rather than the spread of European 

civilization. In England, State assistance to such un- 
dertakings was always slight and uncertain ; the strength 
of the early colonies lay in the wealth and persistence of 
their promoters. 

23. Character of English Emigrants. 

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were full of 
trouble for the English people. Religious restlessness 
English '^^^ succeeded by revolution and civil war, 
impulse to while crude and oppressive economic condi- 
emigration. ^^^^^ induccd lawlcss disturbance and disaster. 
Colonizing schemes were readily taken up in such times of 
unrest. At first the notion prevailed that the colonies 
might profitably be utilized for clearing the mother-country 
of jail-birds and paupers, although with these went out 
many who were worthy pioneers. It remained for the Ply- 
mouth planting to demonstrate that only the honest and 
thrifty can work out the salvation of a wilderness. Amer- 
ica attracted the attention alike of traders and settlers 
because its soil was supposed to be rich, because the 
climate was temperate and not unlike that of England, 
because there was plenty of room, and because the 
unknown land attracted the adventurous. 



54 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. III. 

Englishmen were soon found to be the best colonizers 
in the world. An intelligent, large, well-built, and hand- 
Englishmen some race, active in a high degree and passion- 
as colonists, ately fond of out-door life and manly sports, 
they are brave and enterprising, will fight for suprem- 
acy, are tenacious of purpose, and carry with them in 
their migrations their ideas, their customs, and their 
Their cha- laws. They do not assimilate with other 
racteristics, races, — in fact, there is inbred in them a 
strong disdain of foreigners, and still more of inferior 
races ; but they rule with vigor, and make a lasting 
impress of their characteristics upon the communities 
they establish. Although Englishmen in the seventeenth 
century, when they colonized America, lacked many of 
the refinements of civilization, were coarse in their tastes 
and sentiments, and much given to dissipation and petty 
vices, a fibre of robust morality ran through the na- 
tional life. The leaders were educated, they were 
ambitious for their race, and there was a healthy tone 
to their patriotic aspirations. Simple and reserved in 
manner, they prided themselves on repressing the utter- 
ance of their feelings, entering upon the serious business 
of rearing a nation in the wilds with most becoming 
gravity. Their conduct was often bad, but they were 
schooled in piety and reverence, and were steadfast in 
high aims. 

They had been trained in self-government, and were 
sticklers for healthy political precedents. They were the 
heirs of grim and sturdy Teutonic ancestors who knew 
no rule but that imposed by "the armed assembly of the 
whole people." The germs of modern English free 
and representative institutions are to be plainly traced 
in the forest councils of the Germanic tribes. In the 
succeeding ages these institutions had grown irregu- 
larly, but it was a growth founded on the irresistible 



i6oo.j Toivn and County, 55 

will of the people ; they had descended to the men of 
the seventeenth century as the sacred heirlooms of 
and their free generations which had freely spent blood and 
institutions, treasure for the rights of all Englishmen to 
come. The principle and habit of self-government were 
deep rooted in the heart of every English commoner; it 
was a part of his nature. And this principle, this habit, 
he brought with him to America. English institutions 
were merely transplanted to the New World, where they 
developed with perhaps greater rapidity than at home, — 
certainly on somewhat different and characteristic lines : 
but they were and still are English institutions. 

24. Local Government in the Colonies. 

The primary local body in the England which these 
first colonists to America knew, was the parish, or town. 
The English which had both an ecclesiastical and a tem- 
town porai jurisdiction. Next above the parishes 

was the territorial division known as the county, with 
an independent magistracy and a judicial and military 
organization adapted to the needs of a large rural area. 
In making independent settlements on the 

and county. . . , ^ ,. , . , 

American coast, the English commercial com- 
panies and proprietors were not establishing states ; 
what they planted were but the germs of states. Each 
detached colony had a distinct life, and it was natural 
that, despite the general rules of government established 
by the companies, the people should proceed at once to 
govern themselves in their local affairs upon either the 
town or the county plan, according to circumstances. 
The flexibility of English representative institutions has 
never elsewhere been so well illustrated as in the different 
forms they took on in the American colonies, without 
once departing from the integrity of historic models. 



56 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. IIL 

In the Southern colonies the country was traversed by 
deep, broad river highways, leading far inland ; the cli- 
The county ^^^^ ^as genial, the savages proved compar- 
the political atively friendly, and the introduction of slav- 
Southern ery tended to foster an aristocratic class of 
colonies ; landed proprietors, — large plantations, there- 
fore, were the rule. There were a few small trading 
villages, but the bulk of the people were isolated, and 
township governments were impracticable. The set- 
tlers therefore adopted a primary government akin 
to the English rural county, having jurisdiction over 
a wide tract of country, with a commander of militia, 
appointed by the governor and styled a lieutenant, 
whose duties and authority were similar to those of 
the lords-lieutenant at home ; judicial powers being 
exercised by eight or more gentlemen, also appointed 
by the governor, serving as a county court. It should 
be remembered that the Southern county was not, 
as in England, a group of towns, — it was itself the 
primary organization. The parish was sometimes, in 
newly settled portions, co-extensive with the county; but 
more often the latter was, for religious purposes, divided 
into parishes, the vestries of which had authority in 
some civil matters. Again, for the purposes of tax levy 
and collection, the county was divided into precincts; 
and in some districts conditions were such — among them 
the hostility of the savages — that the people of each 
plantation or small neighborhood assembled for worship 
by themselves, and thus became recognized as a separate 
community, in some matters self-governed. These differ- 
ences in local organization account for the terms "plan- 
tation," " congregation," and " hundred," often me . 
with in early Southern records. The tendency of th { 
Southern political and social system was to concentrate 
power in the hands of a few men, in sharp distinction 



i6o6-i775-J ^/^^ New England Town. 57 

to the New England plan, where the people governed 
themselves in small primary assemblies, only delegating 
the conduct of details to their agents, the town officers. 

In New England, the narrowness of the Atlantic slope, 
the shortness of the rivers, the severe climate, the hos- 
and the town ^^^^^^ °^ ^^ savages, the neighborhood of the 
in New French, the density of the forests, and the 

"^ " ■ fact that each community was an organized 
religious congregation, — people belonging to one church, 
who had "resolved to live together," — led to the estab- 
Hshment of more or less compact communities, called 
towns; and these were the political and ecclesiastical 
units. Since the conditions were changed, some features 
of the English parish were modified to suit the more 
primitive necessities of life in the wilderness. Thus we 
find that here and there in New England was a reversion 
to older Teutonic forms, although of this significant fact 
the colonists themselves were unaware ; for the now 
Unconscious familiar truth that the ancestry of our in« 
otderTeu-° stitutions reaches back to the beginnings of 
tonic forms, the race, had not then been discovered. Not 
only was the English town government practically repro- 
duced on American soil, with such changes as were 
adapted to the new environment, but the tides of the 
town officials were, in many cases, borrowed froni the 
mother-land. When the first town meeting was held, 
English local government had been successfully grafted 
upon the New World. 

In the middle colonies, which partook of the climatic 
characteristics of both their Northern and Southern 
The mixed neighbors, and had a population made up 
mfddie^"^^^ of various nationalities, there were compact 
colonies. trading towns as well as large agricultural 
regions; and there we find a mixed system, of both 
townships and counties. 



58 Colonization a7td Colonists. [Ch hi. 

With all these differences in form, the principle at 
ivork was the same. From the beginning the American 
Differences colonists were hampered in the work of their 
only inform, general assemblies, at first by commercial com- 
panies, and then by royal and proprietary interference ; 
nevertheless, in the conduct of their purely local affairs 
they often exercised a greater degree of freedom than 
their brethren in England. It is the purpose of this 
and succeeding volumes to show how, amid many shift- 
ings, unions, and divisions, these isolated, self-governing 
EngHsh colonies, planted independently here and there 
in the American wilds, unconscious of the great future 
before them, were, by an orderly, logical progression of 
events, the trend of which was often not noticeable to 
the men of the time, successfully merged, at first into 
states, and finally into a nation. 

25. Colonial Governments. 

The colonists were accustomed in England to specific 
ranks and orders of society. In America, while there 
Social were from the first sharp social distinctions, 

distinctions, the fact that the great body of the settlers be- 
gan life in the wilderness side by side, on an equal basis, 
was favorable to a democratic sentiment. Nobility was 
connected, in Enghsh minds, with great landed estates, 
of which there were few in America outside of Vir- 
ginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and New York. Under 
Locke's constitution it was attempted by the proprieta- 
ries formally to divide Carolina society into groups, with 
hereditary titles ; but the project could not be carried 
out. Nevertheless, Southern society was in the main as 
distinctly stratified, after the introduction of slavery, as 
though titles had existed. New England life was calcu- 
lated strongly to foster the spirit of independence ; and 
the slave class was not large enough materially to affect 



i6o6-i77s] Colofiial Governments. 59 

social conditions. Still, there was an acknowledged and 
respected aristocracy, founded on ancestry, education, 
commercial success, and individual merit, but lacking 
staying qualities; for it had neither large estates nor 
primogeniture' to back it. The scheme of Lord Brooke, 
Lord Say and Sele, and others, to introduce hereditary 
rank in Massachusetts (1636) fortunately failed to receive 
popular approval. 

Used as they were to the exercise of the royal pre- 
rogative, the colonists accepted the free exercise by 
Colonial the governors of the privileges of appoint- 
goveraors. ment and veto, whether those officials were 
selected by the Crown or by proprietaries. In ad- 
dition to these privileges, the governor of a royal 
colony was the bearer of royal instructions and the 
medium of royal directions ; he was the executive 
officer, the granter of pardons (except in capital cases), 
the commander of the military and naval forces, the 
head of the established church, and the chief of the 
judiciary; and he could summon, prorogue, and dis- 
solve the assembly. The assembly held the purse- 
strings, however, and the actual power of the governor 
was consequently in a great degree curtailed. The 
record of colonial politics is largely made up of dis- 
putes between the representatives and the executive, 
in which the assembly usually won by withholding 
supplies until the governor came to its terms. 

The judiciary system was alike in no two colonies, 
but there were certain resemblances in all. There were 
Thejudi- commonly local justices of the peace,- with 
ciary. jurisdiction limited to petty civil cases ; some- 

times these were elected by the freeholders of the 
district, but generally they were appointed by the 
governor. Then came the county courts, the members of 
which were appointees of the governor, except in New 



6o Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. III. 

Jersey, where they were elected. These county judges 
were representative gentlemen, and not trained in the 
law. They had criminal jurisdiction except in capital 
cases, and final jurisdiction in civil cases not involving 
large amounts ; the limit was ;^20 in Virginia and £7. in 
Maryland, and elsewhere between these extremes. Next 
was the provincial, supreme, or general court : ordinarily 
this was composed of the governor, as chancellor, and 
the members of his council ; but in several colonies this 
colonial court was a separate body, appointed by the 
governor, who, with his council, constituted a still higher 
court of appeals and chancery. From the highest courts 
a suitor could, in important cases, carry his appeal to the 
king in council. The common and statute law of Eng- 
land prevailed when provincial law was silent on the 
subject. Sometimes questions arose upon the validity 
of provincial statutes : when the courts found that 
they were not in accordance with the charter, they 
declared them void ; but the matter could be carried 
to the English Privy Council for ultimate decision. 
This was the germ of the power of the United States 
Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of 
a law. 

At first American territory was granted to chartered 
commercial companies, — notably the Virginia Company 
and the Council for New England, — which 
sought to control their colonies from England, 
under the supervision of the Crown. The Virginia 
colony was early deprived of its charter by the Crown 
(1624) ; but members of the Massachusetts Company 
boldly emigrated to America, and taking advantage of 
the confusion in England, kept up a practically inde- 
pendent state for two generations; though at last (1692) 
the people were obliged to accept a new charter estab- 
lishing a royal governor. The colonies of Rhode Island 



i6g6-i775] Charters, 6 1 

and Connecticut obtained charters direct from England, 
with privileges of self-government, and lived under them 
till long after they had become States. New Hampshire, 
after having been governed by Massachusetts, became a 
royal province without having passed through the charter 
or proprietary stage. The other colonies were proprie- 
tary, but all finally reverted to the Crown. Maryland and 
Pennsylvania and Delaware were still proprietary at the 
outbreak of the Revolution, having been restored to the 
proprietors after reversion. 

The two houses of Parliament had made the colonists 
accustomed to the bicameral system. In Virginia under 
^ company management the corporation council 

Two houses. . T7 / J J • .u 

m England served m a measure as the upper 
house, with powers of general direction. In Massachu- 
setts (where the company was technically resident in the 
colony), and in the proprietary and royal colonies as well, 
there was for a long time but one house. Finally, often 
as the result of dissensions between the deputies and the 
officials, the former came to sit apart, — the colonies thus 
in most cases returning to the English system of two 
houses ; but the council was small, and had administrative 
functions which made it very different from the House 
of Lords. These colonial assemblies were schools for 
the cultivation of the spirit of independence. Burke 
said the colonists " had formed within themselves, either 
by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so ex- 
ceedingly resembling a parliament in all their forms, 
functions, and powers that it was impossible they should 
not imbibe some opinion of a similar authority." 

26. Privileges of the Colonists. 

Electoral qualifications varied greatly. In the consid- 
eration of this, as well as of other institutions, Mas- 
sachusetts and Virginia must be taken as types of 



62 Colonization and Colonists. ICh. hi. 

opposite systems, the other colonies departing more or 
less from them, according to proximity. Originally in 
The suf- Massachusetts, " any person inhabiting with- 
frage. jn the town " could vote at town-meetings ; 

later, with the arrival of objectionable immigrants, this 
privilege was restricted (1634) to freemen, — practically 
all the members of the church, — and still later (1691), 
to " the possessors of an estate of freehold in land to the 
value of 40J. per annum, or other estate to the value of 
;^4o." In Virginia, at the start, all freemen were allowed 
to vote. But it was afterwards decided (1670) that the 
" usuall way of chuseing burgesses by the votes of all 
persons who, haveing served their time, are freemen of 
this country," was detrimental to the colony; and the 
principle was laid down that " a voyce in such election " 
should be given " only to such as by their estates, real 
or personall, have interest enough to tye them to the 
endeavour of the publique good." By the beginning of 
the eighteenth century a freehold test obtained in most, 
if not in all, the colonies. In 1746 Parliament added a 
further qualification, in the guise of a general natural- 
ization law, providing that a voter must have resided 
seven years in his colony, taken the oath of allegiance, 
and professed the " Protestant Christian faith." 

The principle of representation, by which a few are 
charged with acting and speaking for the many in the 
Representa- conduct of public affairs, has been familiar 
*^o°- to Enghshmen since the time when a parha- 

ment was convoked during the contest between John 
and the barons (121 3). The practice was adopted early 
in the history of the colonies, — the first house of bur- 
gesses of Virginia meeting in 1619; while in Massa- 
chusetts, the refusal of Watertown (1632) to be taxed 
without representation caused the adoption of the plan of 
sending deputies to the General Court. The American 



i492-i6cx).] Spain and Portugal. 47 

19. Spanish and Portuguese Policy. 

It chanced that the American discoveries made by- 
Spain were in the region of rich and physically weak 

nations. Consequently she won her vast do- 
Spain. . . 1 • .• , 

mmions on this contment by sweepmg con- 
quest rather than by commercial growth. This was in 
sharp contrast with the slow, steady planting of New 
England, where the settlers were obliged to conquer a 
sterile soil and brave a rigid climate, where they were 
hemmed about with savage neighbors who disputed 
their establishment, and where they met as well the 
sharp opposition, first of the Dutch, and then of the 
French, — the latter, in their desire for the Mississippi 
valley, jealously endeavoring to restrict Englishmen to the 
Atlantic slope. The Spaniards were brave, and they 
could rule with severity. But they thirsted for adven- 
ture, conquest, and wealth, for which their appetite was 
early encouraged; their progress in Mexico, Peru, and 
the West Indies had been too rapid and brilliant for 
them to be satisfied with the dull life and patient devel- 
opment of an agricultural colony. Had they known in 
advance the conditions of success on the North Amer- 
ican mainland, it is probable that we should never have 
been obliged to chronicle the splendid but disastrous 
expeditions of Narvaez and De Soto. They would 
doubtless have made no attempt to subdue a land which 
offered nothing for such appetites as theirs. Their aims 
were sordid, their State was loosely knit, their commer- 
cial policy was rigidly exclusive, their morals were lax, 
and their treatment of the savages was cruel, despite the 
tendency of the colonists to amalgamate with the latter, 
and thus to descend m the scale of civihzation. The 
effect of the specie so easily acquired in Mexico and 
Peru was to make Spain rapidly rich without manufac* 



48 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

tures; but her people were thereby demoralized and 
unfitted for the ordinary channels of employment, and 
her rulers were corrupted and enfeebled ; in the end the 
country was impoverished, declining as rapidly as it had 
risen. Spain's glory was fast waning both in the New 
and the Old World at the close of the sixteenth century, 
and France was ready, in the march of events, to suc- 
ceed to her place as the leading nation of Europe. 
France was to be supplanted a century later by England, 
which was not known as a great power until the dis- 
persion of the Armada. We have seen that in this his- 
torical progress Spain unwittingly helped England by 
driving the French out from Florida and Carolina ; 
nevertheless the decline of Spain left France the most 
formidable rival of the Enghsh. 

The Portuguese, though impelled by a similar passion 
for conquest, were more eager for trade than their power- 
ful and often domineering Spanish neighbors. 
They oppressed their colonies, were greedy in 
their commercial strivings, maltreated the weak natives of 
Brazil and the West Indies, lacked administrative ability 
and the spirit of progress, and suffered from want of a 
well-balanced colonial system. The Portuguese colonies 
in America had much the same history as the Spanish, 
their situation being similar. Brazil was of no great impor- 
tance until the early years of the nineteenth century, 
and made herself independent in 1822, — thus following 
the lead of Mexico, which set up an independent govern- 
ment the previous year. 

20. French Policy. 

France had no permanent colonies in America before 
the seventeenth century. Port Royal was planted in 
1604, and Quebec not until four years later. The French 
were good fighters, enterprising, and while not eager 



1497- 1 7 63] France. 49 

to colonize, were capable of adapting themselves to new 
conditions; they had the capacity to carry their ideas 
with them across the seas, and they readily 
assimilated with the aborigines. While freely 
intermarrying with the natives, unlike the Spaniards 
they rather improved the savage stock than were de- 
graded by it. They had the faculty of making the red 
barbarian a boon companion, and of inducing him to 
serve them and fight for them ; indeed, since their colo- 
nizing enterprises were based on the fur-trade, their 
opposition to the advance of English agricultural posses* 
sion was, like that of the Indians, fundamental. The 
French and the savages were therefore united in a 
common cause against a common foe. 

The Breton and Norman merchant-seamen who went 
out to Newfoundland and carried on fisheries and the 
fur-trade paved the way for the future throng of emi- 
grants. As colonizers the French worked quietly and 
persistently, and would have succeeded, had not their 
enterprises been ruined by their unfortunate political and 
ecclesiastical policy and the mismanagement of their 
rulers. Louis XIV. was capricious and extravagant. 
His court was a nest of intrigue, corruption, pecula- 
tion, jealousies, and dissensions. The Huguenots, who 
represented the industrial classes, began the French 
colonization of America; but we have seen how sadly 
their government neglected them in Florida. Finally, 
when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) re- 
sulted in driving them from home, and they were eager 
to join their lot with that of their countrymen in 
Canada, priest-rule prescribed their dehberate exclusion 
from the colonies, — which they could have made a New 
France in fact, — and thus forced them to contribute their 
strength to the rival English settlements farther down the 
coast. The government was in some respects over 
4 



50 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. III. 

liberal to its North American colonies, — it aided them 
financially to an extent unknown elsewhere; but thej 
were not self-governed, and the king continually inter- 
fered with the commercial companies, which in a large 
measure controlled the colonies, so that a favor granted 
through corrupt influences to-day might to-morrow be 
revoked by counter-influences equally corrupt. Pater- 
nalism, centralization, bureaucratic government, official 
rottenness, instability of system, religious exclusiveness, 
and a vicious system of land-tenure were the prime causes 
of the ruin of New France ; although we must not forget 
that the centre of its power had been planted in an in- 
hospitable climate, and that its far-reaching water-system 
tempted the inhabitants into the forests and cultivated the 
fur-trade at the expense of agriculture, thereby placing 
the province at a disadvantage from the start. 

21. Dutch and Swedish Policy. 

The burden of over-population with which Spain, 
France, and Portugal were troubled, and to relieve the 
pressure of which was one of the motives of 
their colonizing efforts, was not felt by Hol- 
land ; for despite the fact that she sustained a more 
dense population than any other European State, her 
citizens were prosperous. They were not stirred, like 
neighboring peoples, by the impulse of emigration. Pre- 
eminently a trading nation, Holland sought commerce 
rather than extension of empire. Long the chief carrier 
of Europe before striking into a broader field, she fol- 
lowed in the steps of the Portuguese, and by the opening 
of the seventeenth century took rank as a colonizing 
power. Her most fruitful labors were in the East rather 
than in the West. It was in the attempt to find the 
nortliwest passage to India that Hudson discovered the 
river which bears his name. With the Dutch, though 



x6o9-i 664-1 Holland and Sweden. 5 1 

religious reformers, religion was secondary to trade. So 
long as trade was good, they were patient under insult 
and outrage. Individually they made but little impress 
upon the community. Commerce was chiefly conducted 
through large chartered companies, minutely managed 
in Holland. Dutch colonies declined because their com- 
mercial system was non-progressive and unsound; they 
appear to have been unable to rise out of the trader 
state. Yet we must not forget that Holland was of 
small size and had overbearing, jealous neighbors ; her 
long and heroic struggle with Spain tended greatly to 
delay her efforts to trade in and colonize the New 
World. 

The Swedish colony on the Delaware was planned by 
authority of Gustavus Adolphus on broad, liberal prin- 
ciples ; he hoped it would become " the jewel 
of his kingdom." But while it throve for a 
time and gave much promise of endurance, the Dutch 
soon overpowered it. Had the Swedish monarch lived 
to carry out the design, doubtless he would have proved 
that Scandinavians could successfully maintain an inde- 
pendent province in the New World. Like the Germans, 
however, they have in later years been in the main con- 
tent to colonize as the subjects of foreign governments. 

22. English Policy. 

England remains the only country which planted pop- 
ulous colonies within the present United States and re- 
tained them long after they were planted. Her 
"^ ^" ■ insular position and fine harbors have given her 
a race of sailors ; her climate has proved favorable for 
rearing a hardy people, who, secure in their boundaries 
and not necessarily entangled in Continental affairs, have 
been left free to develop and to push independent enter- 
prises. As regards American exploration, the fact that 



52 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

England is the westernmost State in Europe had at first 
much to do with her pre-eminence. Until the close of 
the sixteenth century England's resources were slender, 
and her government was not desirous of incurring the 
hostility of stronger European neighbors by poaching too 
freely on their colonial preserves. Cabot went out at 
his own cost. Drake's operations, while adding to the 
glory of England, and directly favored by Queen Eliza- 
beth, were continually endangering her with Spain. But 
in the face of all discouragements, the sixteenth century 
was a notable training period for English sea-rovers. 
The records of the age are aglow with the deeds of the 
Cabots, Frobisher, Davis, Drake, Cavendish, Gilbert, 
Raleigh, Grenville, and their like, who, while invariably 
failing in their persistent efforts at colonization, were 
charting the American coast-line, making the New World 
familiar to their countrymen, and striking out shorter 
paths across the Atlantic. At first outstripped by other 
European nations, England was becoming one of the 
principal maritime powers when the seventeenth century 
began. Spain, weakened by the defection of the Nether- 
lands, and still further humiliated by the defeat of the 
Armada (1588), was by this time showing evidences of 
decay, and France was the growing rival in the West. 

English occupation in North America, like the 
French, began with the fishermen who, following in 
The En Ush Cabot's wakc, early sought the banks of New- 
trading foundland. They were courageous, business- 
spint. j.j^^ v^^xi^ who soon supplemented their calhng 
as fishermen with a profitable native trade in peltries. 
The trading spirit has always been deeply implanted in 
the Teutonic races; when England had gathered suffi- 
cient strength to make it discreet to assert herself, we 
find that her reachings out for wider territory took the 
shape of commercial enterprise. The romantic adven- 



1 500-1700.] English Character, 53 

turers of the age of Elizabeth, as much freebooters as 
explorers, were now succeeded by prosaic trading com- 
panies, which undertook to plant colonies along the 
Atlantic coast. In doing this they were impelled in 
part by a desire to relieve England from some of her 
surplus population ; but in the main the colonies were to 
serve as trading and supply stations. 

In aiding these corporations, which succeeded after a 
fashion in planting colonies, but failed for the most part 
Scanty State ^"^ reaping profits, the State expected increased 
^^^- revenue rather than the spread of European 

civilization. In England, State assistance to such un- 
dertakings was always slight and uncertain ; the strength 
of the early colonies lay in the wealth and persistence of 
their promoters. 

23. Character of English Emigrants. 

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were full of 
trouble for the EngHsh people. Religious restlessness 
Eneiish ^^^ Succeeded by revolution and civil war, 
impuiseto while crude and oppressive economic condi- 
emigra ion. ^^^^^ induced lawless disturbance and disaster. 
Colonizing schemes were readily taken up in such times of 
unrest. At first the notion prevailed that the colonies 
might profitably be utilized for clearing the mother-country 
of jail-birds and paupers, although with these went out 
many who were worthy pioneers. It remained for the Ply- 
mouth planting to demonstrate that only the honest and 
thrifty can work out the salvation of a wilderness. Amer- 
ica attracted the attention alike of traders and settlers 
because its soil was supposed to be rich, because the 
climate was temperate and not unlike that of England, 
because there was plenty of room, and because the 
unknown land attracted the adventurous. 



54 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. III. 

Englishmen were soon found to be the best colonizers 
in the world. An intelligent, large, well-built, and hand- 
Englishmen some race, active in a high degree and passion- 
as colonists, ately fond of out-door life and manly sports, 
they are brave and enterprising, will fight for suprem- 
acy, are tenacious of purpose, and carry with them in 
their migrations their ideas, their customs, and their 
Their cha- laws. They do not assimilate with other 
racteristics, races, — in fact, there is inbred in them a 
strong disdain of foreigners, and still more of inferior 
races ; but they rule with vigor, and make a lasting 
impress of their characteristics upon the communities 
they establish. Although Englishmen in the seventeenth 
century, when they colonized America, lacked many of 
the refinements of civilization, were coarse in their tastes 
and sentiments, and much given to dissipation and petty 
vices, a fibre of robust morality ran through the na- 
tional life. The leaders were educated, they were 
ambitious for their race, and there was a healthy tone 
to their patriotic aspirations. Simple and reserved in 
manner, they prided themselves on repressing the utter- 
ance of their feelings, entering upon the serious business 
of rearing a nation in the wilds with most becoming 
gravity. Their conduct was often bad, but they were 
schooled in piety and reverence, and were steadfast in 
high aims. 

They had been trained in self-government, and were 
sticklers for healthy political precedents. They were the 
heirs of grim and sturdy Teutonic ancestors who knew 
no rule but that imposed by "the armed assembly of the 
whole people." The germs of modern English free 
and representative institutions are to be plainly traced 
in the forest councils of the Germanic tribes. In the 
succeeding ages these institutions had grown irregu- 
larly, but it was a growth founded on the irresistible 



i6oo.] Town and County. 55 

will of the people ; they had descended to the men of 
the seventeenth century as the sacred heirlooms of 
and their free generations which had freely spent blood and 
institutions, treasure for the rights of all Englishmen to 
come. The principle and habit of self-government were 
deep rooted in the heart of every English commoner ; it 
was a part of his nature. And this principle, this habit, 
he brought with him to America. English institutions 
were merely transplanted to the New World, where they 
developed with perhaps greater rapidity than at home, — 
certainly on somewhat different and characteristic lines : 
but they were and still are English institutions. 

24. Local Government in the Colonies. 

The primar}-- local body in the England which these 
first colonists to America knew, was the parish, or town. 
The English which had both an ecclesiastical and a tem- 
town poral jurisdiction. Next above the parishes 

was the territorial division known as the counLy, with 
an independent magistracy and a judicial and military 
organization adapted to the needs of a large rural area. 
In making independent settlements on the 
coun y. ^j^gj-j^^j^ coast, the English commercial com- 
panies and proprietors were not establishing states ; 
what they planted were but the germs of states. Each 
detached colony had a distinct life, and it was natural 
that, despite the general rules of government established 
by the companies, the people should proceed at once to 
govern themselves in their local affairs upon either the 
town or the county plan, according to circumstances. 
The flexibility of English representative institutions has 
never elsewhere been so well illustrated as in the different 
forms they took on in the American colonies, without 
once departing from the integrity of historic models. 



56 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

In the Southern colonies the country was traversed by 
deep, broad river highways, leading far inland ; the cli- 
The county "late was genial, the savages proved compar- 
the political atively friendly, and the introduction of slav- 
Southern ery tended to foster an aristocratic class of 
colonies; landed proprietors, — large plantations, there- 
fore, were the rule. There were a few small trading 
villages, but the bulk of the people were isolated, and 
township governments were impracticable. The set- 
tlers therefore adopted a primary government akin 
to the English rural county, having jurisdiction over 
a wide tract of country, with a commander of militia, 
appointed by the governor and styled a lieutenant, 
whose duties and authority were similar to those of 
the lords-lieutenant at home ; judicial powers being 
exercised by eight or more gentlemen, also appointed 
by the governor, serving as a county court. It should 
be remembered that the Southern county was not, 
as in England, a group of towns, — it was itself the 
primary organization. The parish was sometimes, in 
newly settled portions, co-extensive with the county; but 
more often the letter was, for religious purposes, divided 
into parishes, the vestries of which had authority in 
some civil matters. Again, for the purposes of tax levy 
and collection, the county was divided into precincts; 
and in some districts conditions were such — among them 
the hostility of the savages — that the people of each 
plantation or small neighborhood assembled for worship 
by themselves, and thus became recognized as a separate 
community, in some matters self-governed. These differ- 
ences in local organization account for the terms "plan- 
tation," " congregation," and " hundred," often me , 
with in early Southern records. The tendency of th i 
Southern political and social system was to concentrate 
power in the hands of a few men, in sharp distinction 



i6o6-i775-J The New Engla?id Town. y/ 

to the New England plan, where the people governed 
themselves in small primary assemblies, only delegating 
the conduct of details to their agents, the town officers. 

In New England, the narrowness of the Atlantic slope, 
the shortness of the rivers, the severe climate, the hos- 
and the town tiHty of the savages, the neighborhood of the 
in New French, the density of the forests, and the 

fact that each community was an organized 
religious congregation, — people belonging to one church, 
who had "resolved to live together," — led to the estab- 
lishment of more or less compact communities, called 
towns; and these were the political and ecclesiastical 
units. Since the conditions were changed, some features 
of the English parish were modified to suit the more 
primitive necessities of life in the wilderness. Thus we 
find that here and there in New England was a reversion 
to older Teutonic forms, although of this significant fact 
the colonists themselves were unaware ; for the now 
Unconscious familiar truth that the ancestry of our in« 
o!derTeu-° stitutions reaches back to the beginnings of 
tonic forms, the race, had not then been discovered. Not 
only was the English town government practically repro- 
duced on American soil, with such changes as were 
adapted to the new environment, but the titles of the 
town officials were, in many cases, borrowed from the 
mother-land. When the first town meeting was held, 
English local government had been successfully grafted 
upon the New World. 

In the middle colonies, which partook of the climatic 
characteristics of both their Northern and Southern 
The mixed neighbors, and had a population made up 
mfdd^ '" ^^^ of various nationalities, there were compact 
colonies. trading towns as well as large agricultural 
regions; and there we find a mixed system, of both 
townships and counties. 



58 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch hi. 

With all these differences in form, the principle at 
rvork was the same. From the beginning the American 
Differences colonists were hampered in the work of their 
only inform, general assemblies, at first by commercial com- 
panies, and then by royal and proprietary interference; 
nevertheless, in the conduct of their purely local affairs 
they often exercised a greater degree of freedom than 
their brethren in England. It is the purpose of this 
and succeeding volumes to show how, amid many shift- 
ings, unions, and divisions, these isolated, self-governing 
Enghsh colonies, planted independently here and there 
in the American wilds, unconscious of the great future 
before them, were, by an orderly, logical progression of 
events, the trend of which was often not noticeable to 
the men of the time, successfully merged, at first into 
states, and finally into a nation. 

25. Colonial Governments. 

The colonists were accustomed in England to specific 
ranks and orders of society. In America, while there 
Social were from the first sharp social distinctions, 

distinctions, the fact that the great body of the settlers be- 
gan life in the wilderness side by side, on an equal basis, 
was favorable to a democratic sentiment. Nobility was 
connected, in English minds, with great landed estates, 
of which there were few in America outside of Vir- 
ginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and New York. Under 
Locke's constitution it was attempted by the proprieta- 
ries formally to divide Carolina society into groups, with 
hereditary titles ; but the project could not be carried 
out. Nevertheless, Southern society was in the main as 
distinctly stratified, after the introduction of slavery, as 
though titles had existed. New England life was calcu- 
lated strongly to foster the spirit of independence ; and 
the slave class was not large enough materially to affect 



1606-1775] Colonial Governments. 59 

social conditions. Still, there was an acknowledged and 
respected aristocracy, founded on ancestry, education, 
commercial success, and individual merit, but lacking 
staying qualities; for it had neither large estates nor 
primogeniture to back it. The scheme of Lord Brooke, 
Lord Say and Sele, and others, to introduce hereditary 
rank in Massachusetts (1636) fortunately failed to receive 
popular approval. 

Used as they were to the exercise of the royal pre- 
rogative, the colonists accepted the free exercise by 
Colonial the governors of the privileges of appoint- 
governors. ment and veto, whether those officials were 
selected by the Crown or by proprietaries. In ad- 
dition to these privileges, the governor of a royal 
colony was the bearer of royal instructions and the 
medium of royal directions ; he was the executive 
officer, the granter of pardons (except in capital cases), 
the commander of the military and naval forces, the 
head of the established church, and the chief of the 
judiciary ; and he could summon, prorogue, and dis- 
solve the assembly. The assembly held the purse- 
strings, however, and the actual power of the governor 
was consequently in a great degree curtailed. The 
record of colonial politics is largely made up of dis- 
putes between the representatives and the executive, 
in which the assembly usually won by withholding 
supplies until the governor came to its terms. 

The judiciary system was alike in no two colonies, 
but there were certain resemblances in all. There were 
Thejudi- commonly local justices of the peace, with 
ciary. jurisdiction limited to petty civil cases ; some- 

times these were elected by the freeholders of the 
district, but generally they were appointed by the 
governor. Then came the county courts, the members of 
which were appointees of the governor, except in New 



6o Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

Jersey, where they were elected. These county judges 
were representative gentlemen, and not trained in the 
law. They had criminal jurisdiction except in capital 
cases, and final jurisdiction in civil cases not involving 
large amounts ; the limit was £2.0 in Virginia and £2. in 
Maryland, and elsewhere between these extremes. Next 
was the provincial, supreme, or general court : ordinarily 
this was composed of the governor, as chancellor, and 
the members of his council; but in several colonies this 
colonial court was a separate body, appointed by the 
governor, who, with his council, constituted a still higher 
court of appeals and chancery. From the highest courts 
a suitor could, in important cases, carry his appeal to the 
king in council. The common and statute law of Eng- 
land prevailed when provincial law was silent on the 
subject. Sometimes questions arose upon the validity 
of provincial statutes: when the courts found that 
they were not in accordance with the charter, they 
declared them void; but the matter could be carried 
to the English Privy Council for ultimate decision. 
This was the germ of the power of the United States 
Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of 
a law. 

At first American territory was granted to chartered 
commercial companies, — notably the Virginia Company 
and the Council for New England, — which 
sought to control their colonies from England, 
under the supervision of the Crown. The Virginia 
colony was early deprived of its charter by the Crown 
(1624); but members of the Massachusetts Company 
boldly emigrated to America, and taking advantage of 
the confusion in England, kept up a practically inde- 
pendent state for two generations; though at last (1692) 
the people were obliged to accept a new charter estab- 
lishing a royal governor. The colonies of Rhode Island 



i6g6-i775J Charters, 6l 

and Connecticut obtained charters direct from England, 
with privileges of self-government, and lived under them 
till long after they had become States. New Hampshire, 
after having been governed by Massachusetts, became a 
royal province without having passed through the charter 
or proprietary stage. The other colonies were proprie- 
tary, but all finally reverted to the Crown. Mar^'land and 
Pennsylvania and Delaware were still proprietary at the 
outbreak of the Revolution, having been restored to the 
proprietors after reversion. 

The two houses of Parhament had made the colonists 

accustomed to the bicameral system. In Virginia under 

company management the corporation council 

Two houses. . „ . ,. , . ^, 

m England served m a measure as the upper 
house, with powers of general direction. In Massachu- 
setts (where the company was technically resident in the 
colony), and in the proprietary and royal colonies as well, 
there was for a long time but one house. Finally, often 
as the result of dissensions between the deputies and the 
officials, the former came to sit apart, — the colonies thus 
in most cases returning to the English system of two 
houses ; but the council was small, and had administrative 
functions which made it very different from the House 
of Lords. These colonial assemblies were schools for 
the cultivation of the spirit of independence. Burke 
said the colonists " had formed within themselves, either 
by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so ex- 
ceedingly resembling a parliament in all their forms, 
functions, and powers that it was impossible they should 
not imbibe some opinion of a similar authority." 

26. Privileges of the Colonists. 

Electoral qualifications varied greatly. In the consid- 
eration of this, as well as of other institutions, Mas- 
sachusetts and Virginia must be taken as types of 



62 Colonization and Colonists. [Ch. hi. 

opposite systems, the other colonies departing more or 
less from them, according to proximity. Originally in 
The suf- Massachusetts, " any person inhabiting with- 
frage. jn the town " could vote at town-meetings ; 

later, with the arrival of objectionable immigrants, this 
privilege was restricted (1634) to freemen, — practically 
all the members of the church, — and still later (1691), 
to " the possessors of an estate of freehold in land to the 
value of 40^-. per annum, or other estate to the value of 
;^4o." In Virginia, at the start, all freemen were allowed 
to vote. But it was afterwards decided (1670) that the 
" usuall way of chuseing burgesses by the votes of all 
persons who, haveing served their time, are freemen of 
this country," was detrimental to the colony; and the 
principle was laid down that " a voyce in such election " 
should be given "only to such as by their estates, real 
or personall, have interest enough to tye them to the 
endeavour of the publique good." By the beginning of 
the eighteenth century a freehold test obtained in most, 
if not in all, the colonies. In 1746 Parliament added a 
further qualification, in the guise of a general natural- 
ization law, providing that a voter must have resided 
seven years in his colony, taken the oath of allegiance, 
and professed the " Protestant Christian faith." 

The principle of representation, by which a few are 
charged with acting and speaking for the many in the 
Representa- conduct of public affairs, has been familiar 
tion. to Englishmen since the time when a parlia- 

ment was convoked during the contest between John 
and the barons (12 13). The practice was adopted early 
in the history of the colonies, — the first house of bur- 
gesses of Virginia meeting in 1619; while in Massa- 
chusetts, the refusal of Watertown (1632) to be taxed 
without representation caused the adoption of the plan of 
sending deputies to the General Court. The American 



i6o6-i775l Rights of Colonists. 63 

colonial assemblies were more truly representative of the 
great body of the people than the English Parliament 
of the period ; to-day, male suffrage is nearly universal 
in England, and entirely so in all the British depen- 
dencies, with the exception of the Crown colonies. 

In the American colonies the execution of the laws 
was as a rule comparatively an easy task. The English 
Rights of colonists had been trained in the political art 
the colonists, of self-control ; they had an abounding regard 
for just laws and the courts ; they respected prece- 
dent, and stoutly stood for the common law, or recog- 
nized customs of their race. They were restive under 
statutes which conflicted with the customary rights of 
Englishmen, which had come down to them from the 
earliest times, and had been confirmed by Magna Charta. 
These rights had not been strictly observed by the 
Tudor sovereigns, and many of the earlier settlers had in 
the mother-country assisted in agitation for their renewal. 
Now that they were transplanted to America, the strug- 
gle was continued at long range with the Stuarts, thus 
developing in the colonists a habit of resistance which 
was to stand them in good stead in the troublous period 
leading up to the American Revolution. 



64 The South. [Ch. IV. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE COLONIZATION OF THE SOUTH. 
(1606-1700.) 



27. References. 

Bibliographies. — S. Kingsbury, Introduction to Records of Vir- 
ginia Company, 207-214; P. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, 
I. xv.-xix.; N. Mereness, Maryland, 521-524; E. Whitney, Gov- 
ernment of South Carolina, footnotes; Avery, U?iited States, II. 411- 
417, 434-438, III. 407-410, 412, 413; Larned, Literature of Ameri- 
can History, 100-106; Winsor, III. 153-166, 553-562, V. 335- 
356; C. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, 351-354; Channing 
and Hart, Guide, §§ 97-102. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. 2 and 3, this volume (Epoch Maps, 
Nos. 2, 3); Doyle, Eyiglish Colonies, I.; MacCoun, Winsor, and 
school histories cited in our ch. i. 

General Accounts. — Lodge, English Colonies, chs. i., iii., 
v., vii.; Doyle, as above, I.; H. Osgood, American Colonies iti 
Seventeenth Century; Avery, as above, II. chs. ix., x.. III. chs. 
i.-iii.; Channing, United States, I. chs. v.-ix.; Andrews, as above, 
chs. ix., xiii.-xv.; Greene, Provincial America, chs. i.-v.; Winsor, 
as above, III. chs. v., xiii., V. ch. v. 

Special Histories. — Virginia : Brown, First Republic in 
America, and English Politics in Early Virginia History ; Bruce, 
as above; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors; J. Cooke 
(Commonwealths) ; L. Tyler, Cradle of the Republic, and Williams- 
burg; R. Pryor, Birth of the Nation; J. Wayland, German Ele- 
ment in Shenandoah Valley. — Maryland : Browne (Common- 
wealths), Scharf, Bozman, Mereness, as above; C. Hall, Lords 
Baltimore; B. Steiner, Beginnings of Maryland. — Carolinas : J. 
Moore, I. chs. i.-iii. ; C. Raper ; E. McCrady, South Carolina under 
Proprietary Government ; S. Ashe, North Carolina, I. Lives of 
Smith by Bradley, Roberts, and Smith. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Reprints of Smith's True Rela- 
tion, and other early documents: Force, Tracts; pubhcations of 
historical societies and commissions of the several states; CarroU, 
Historical Collections; Brown, Genesis of United States; Kings- 
h\xry and Osgood, Records of Virginia Company ; Jameson, Origi- 
nal Narratives of Early American History; American History 
told by Contemporaries, I. part iv; American History Leaflets ^ 
No. 27. 



i6oo.] E^tgland Overpopulated, 65 



28. Reasons for Final English Colonization. 

By the beginning of the seventeenth century it was 
quite evident to thoughtful men that England needed 
Overpopula- room for growth. The population of the 
tionofEng- island had greatly increased during the fif- 
seventeemh teenth and sixteenth centuries. The exten- 
century. ^^^^ ^f ^|-,g wool trade had encouraged the 
turning of vast tracts of tillable ground into sheep- 
pastures, which elbowed large communities of farm- 
laborers out of their calling. England at large waxed 
great, the condition of the merchant and upper classes 
was improved, but the peasant remained where he was, 
the gulf widening between him and those above him. 
The growth of the merchant class and their appearance 
on the scene as large landholders, still further lessened 
the feudal sympathy between peasant and landlord. The 
land abounded with idle men. Everywhere was noticed 
the uneasiness which frets a people too closely packed to 
find ready subsistence. Starvation induced lawlessness. 
. . Colonization was thought by many to be the 

Colonization .,.. t- c t 

a means of Only means of obtammg permanent relief from 
"^^ ^^ ■ the pressing political and economic dangers of 

pauperism ; and naturally America, from which Gosnold, 
Pring, and Weymouth had but recently brought favor- 
able reports, was deemed most available for the planting 
of new English communities. 

But the temper of Englishmen had somewhat changed 
since the days of Raleigh's brilHant enterprises. A spirit 
Chartered °^ sober calculation had succeeded with the 
trading com- increase of the mercantile habit. Raleigh 
dertakeThe was out of favor, and there were no longer 
task. g^jjy private men who would undertake the 

task of colonization. If it were to be done at all, 
it must be by chartered trading companies ; and natu^ 
5 



66 Souther7i Colonies, [Ch. I v. 

rally they looked upon all ventures with merchants' 
eyes rather than statesmen's. The career of the Muscovy 
Company, which had been profitably trading to Russia 
for a half century, and the rapid successes achieved by 
the East India Company, founded in 1599, were pointed 
to as examples of what could be done in this direc- 
tion ; although the obvious fact that Russia and India 
were old and wealthy countries, while America was a 
wilderness peopled by savages, appears not to have been 
considered. 

29. The Charter of 1606. 

Gosnold, returning from his voyage to New England, 
was ardent in the desire to establish a colony in the 
milder climate of Virginia, and easily won to his support 
six representative Englishmen, — Richard Hakluyt, then 
prebendary of Westminster, and now famous as an editor 
of the chronicles of early voyages ; Robert Hunt, a 
clergyman ; Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, 
two "brave and pious gentlemen; " a London merchant 
named Edward Maria Wingfield; and John Smith, a 
soldier. As a result of their endeavors, — seconded by 
Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, and Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges (page 41), — a charter was granted 
by King James (April 10, 1606) to a company with 
The London two subdivisions, — I. The London Company, 
and Ply- composed of Londou merchants, who were 
Companies to establish a colony somewhere between 
organized ^j^g 24th and 4ist degrees of latitude; that 
is, between the southern limit of the North Carolina of 
to-day and the mouth of Hudson River. 2. The Ply- 
mouth Company, composed chiefly of traders and coun- 
try gentlemen in the West of England, with chief offices 
at Plymouth, who were to plant a settlement somewhere 
w)etween the 38th and 45th degrees ; that is, north of the 



i6o6.] Companies and Colonists. 67 

mouth of the Potomac, and south of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. But neither was to make a planting within 
one hundred miles of the other, although their assigned 
territories overlapped each other three degrees. Later 
(1609), the southern colony was given bounds in more 
specific terms, — it was to extend two hundred miles 
along the coast in either direction from Old Point Com- 
fort, and "up into the land from sea to sea, west and 
northwest;" this latter phrase being the foundation of 
the later claim of Virginia to the Northwest. 

King James, unlike Elizabeth, did not favor coloniza- 
tion ; but he was induced to yield his consent to this 
„ ,. undertaking. The colonies established under 

How the => 

colonies were the charter were directly under the king's con- 
governe . ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ Under that of Parliament. The 
government of the two proposed colonies was placed 
in the hands of two resident councils, of thirteen mem- 
bers each, nominated by the Crown from among the 
r olonists ; while above them was a general council of 
fourteen in England, also appointed by the king. After- 
wards, eleven other persons, similarly selected, were 
added to the council in England. 

The resident council was to govern according to laws, 
ordinances, and instructions dictated by the Crown. 
Royal in- '^^^^ royal instructions sent out with the first 
structions colonists to Virginia stipulated that the Church 
Virginia ^f England and the king's supremacy must be 
colonists. maintained, but the president of the council 
must not be in holy orders. The land tenure was to be 
the same as in England. Jury trial was guaranteed. 
Summary punishment must be enforced for drunkards, 
vagrants, and vagabonds, while the death penalty was 
prescribed for rioting, mutiny, and treason, murder, man- 
slaughter, and offences against chastity. The resident 
council might coin money and control the extraction o*- 



68 Southern Colonies. [Ch. IV. 

all precious metals, giving one fifth to the Crown. li 
might also make provisions for the proper administration 
of public affairs ; but all laws were to remain in vogue 
only conditionally, till ratified by the general council in 
England or the Crown. In another clause the king 
declared that all ordinances should be "• consonant to the 
laws of England and the equity thereof." All trade was 
to be public, and in charge of a treasurer or cape mer- 
chant, — an officer chosen by the resident council from 
its .own membership. All the produce of the colony was 
to be brought to a magazine, from which settlers were to 
be supplied with necessaries by the cape merchant. 
Doyle says : " The company . . . was to be a vast joint- 
stock farm, or collection of farms, worked by servants 
who were to receive, in return for their labor, all their 
necessaries and a share in the proceeds of the under- 
taking." As a pious afterthought, the colonists were 
admonished "to show kindness to the savages and hea- 
then people in those parts, and use all proper means to 
draw them to the true knowledge and service of God." 

The rights given to the patentees, represented in the 
general council in England, were : free transport of emi- 
The ri ht grants and goods, the right to exact a duty of 
ofthr^ ^ two and one half per cent on trade with the 
patentees. ^olony by Englishmen, and five per cent on 
trade by foreigners. For twenty-one years the proceeds 
of the enterprise were to accrue to the company; after 
that, to the Crown. 

It should be noted that this patent, given by James to 
the combined London and Plymouth companies, differed 
The kin i greatly from that granted by Elizabeth to 
granted too Gilbert and Raleigh, for it prescribed a consti- 
much power, ^^^^j^^^ f^^ ^^^ colonies, and left but little to 
the judgment of the patentees. The latter, in their 
eagerness to get a commercial charter, had allowed the 



i6o6.] Settlement of Virginia, 69 

king to assume an undue political control over their 
establishment. It was fortunate for Englishmen, both 
in America and England, that James was a weak mon- 
arch. He might readily have used his supreme power 
over the Virginia colonists, not only to browbeat them at 
will, but to tax them unmercifully for the purpose of 
raising money, with which he would be the better 
enabled to bid the home Parliament defiance while at- 
tacking the liberties of his people. He did not lack 
desire, but was wanting in courage and astuteness, 
and allowed those shrewder than himself gradually to 
re-shape the American charter until, within twenty years, 
Virginia had emerged into practical independence. 

30. The Settlement of Virginia (1607-1624). 

The London Company, of which Hakluyt, Somers, and 
Gates were the most active spirits, was first in the field. 
The London A hundred and forty-three colonists were 
firsruTrhe gathered aboard three ships, — the " Discov- 
fieid. ery," the " Good Speed," and the " Susan 

Constant," — which on the 19th of December, 1606, 
sailed down the Thames, on the way to Virginia. The 
composition of the party was not promising. Most 
of them were " gentlemen," unused to and 

Character . , ., , , , , 

of the scorning manual toil ; only twelve were labor- 

co omsts. gj,g . ^^^ among the artisans were " jewellers, 
gold-refiners, and a perfumer." Adventure, mines, and 
golden sands were in the minds of the company, and the 
" gentlemen " doubtless thought they were out for a 
holiday excursion. The fact that there were neither 
women nor children in the expedition shows how little 
conception these people had of the true mission of a 
colony. The little fleet was in charge of Christopher 
Newport, a seaman of good reputation, with whom 
Gosnold was associated. 



70 Southern Colonies. [Ch. IV. 

Among the party was one of the patentees, — Captain 
John Smith. He was the son of a Lincolnshire gentle- 
man; and being a soldier of fortune, had 
™i ^" travelled and experienced adventures in many- 
European countries, — a brave, robust, self-reliant, public- 
spirited, enterprising, humane, and withal a boastful Eng- 
lishman, he has come down to us as one of the most 
romantic figures in American history. Smith's active 
temperament was not at first appreciated by his fellow- 
colonists, and in a fit of jealousy on shipboard they put 
him into irons upon a silly charge of conspiracy; and 
though he had been named a councilloi- by the king, he 
was not allowed to participate in the government for 
nearly a month after landing. 

On the sixteenth of April, 1607, land was sighted, and 
the adventurers soon entered Chesapeake Bay, naming 
Jamestown the Outlying capes, Henry and Charles, after 
settled. xki^ king's sons, and the river, which they soon 

ascended, the James, in honor of the monarch him- 
self. Fifty miles above the mouth of the river is "a 
low peninsula half buried in the tide at high water," 
which they unfortunately selected as the site of a town; 
and landing there on the thirteenth of May, they called 
the place Jamestown. Wingfield, one of the patentees, 
was chosen president of the resident council, explor- 
ing parties were sent out, fortifications were begun, 
and a few log-huts reared. The colonists had been 
instructed by the English council to search for water 
passages running through to the Pacific. A party soon 
set out, under Newport and Smith; but on reaching 
the falls of the James turned back. At first they were 
troubled by Indians ; but peace had been made with the 
neighboring chief before Newport left for England, the 
twenty-second of June. 

The marshes were rank, the water was bad, and food 



1607-1609.I Smith in Control. 7 1 

scanty at Jamestown. The colonists were for the most 
part a shiftless set, lacking the habit of industry. The 
A dismal heat w^as so intense during the first summer 
summer. ^^X few houses were built, and the tents were 
rotten and leaky. The natives, being ill-treated, soon 
broke out again into hostilities. When autumn came, 
fifty of the colonists had died. "Some departed sud- 
denly," wrote a chronicler, " but for the most part 
they died of mere famine. There were never English- 
men left in a foreign country in such misery as we were 
in this new discovered Virginia. ... It would make 
. . . hearts bleed to hear the pitiful murmurings and 
outcries." The only men in office who had not in some 
degree succumbed to the miseries of the situation were 
Gosnold, a man of really superior ability, and Smith 
himself, the latter having now attained to supreme control 
by common consent. Smith compelled his people to 
labor, — "he that will not work shall not eat," was his 
dictum, — maintained trade with the Indians, among 
whom he became popular, drilled the little garrison, kept 
up the fortifications, explored and mapped the country 
and the coast, wrote appeals for assistance to London, 
and was the life and soul of the colony for two years. 

In 1609 Newport had come out with supplies and one 
hundred and twenty emigrants, who again were mainly 
"gentlemen, goldsmiths, and libertines;" and he promptly 
sailed back w''.h a load of worthless shining earth. 
Smith found the new-comers seized with a frenzy for 
discovering gold mines, and his troubles increased. The 
^ , company, impatient for returns, were disap- 

Smiththe . y \ , • • ^ j i. • ^Z 

savior of the pomted because he msisted on having the 
colony. people Cultivate the rich soil, build houses, 

trade with the natives, and explore, rather than go 
seeking for gold where there was none. He appears to 
have been the only man of authority in the enterprise 



']2 Southern Colonies.^ [Ch. iv 

who understood the true conditions of colonization. He 
had repeatedly urged the patentees in London to cease 
sending him gentlemen, idlers, and curious handicrafts- 
men, and instead of such to ship " carpenters, husband- 
men, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and 
diggers up of trees' roots;" and insisted that they "as 
yet must not look for profitable returning." To Smith 
we owe it that Jamestown lived through all its early dis- 
asters, so that when he left it, in October, 1609, it 
had acquired a foothold and was the nucleus of per- 
manent settlement in Virginia. He never again returned 
to the colony, although in later years we find him 
diligently exploring the New England coast. 

With the following year began a new order of things. 
The London Company, stimulated by ill success, had 
The king gained from the king many of the powers 
yields some heretofore reserved to himself, and secured 

of his pre- ' 

rogatives. the appointment of Lord Delaware as gover 
nor and captain-general; he was authorized to rule 
by martial law, thus depriving the turbulent colonists 
of numerous privileges heretofore given them. Dela- 
ware was in Jamestown but for one year, being 
succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale (161 1), who found the 
Administra- colony in ill Condition; many of its servants 
tionsof h^fj defaulted, and there was a large defi- 

Del aware ' * 

and Dale. ciency. In March following (161 2), the com- 
pany obtained a fresh charter, giving it still further 
powers of self-direction and of dealing with crime and 
insubordination, and adding to its domain the Bermudas, 
or Somers Islands, — called thus after Sir George Somers, 
who had touched at them in 1609 while on a voyage of 
relief to Virginia. Dale, now possessed of enlarged 
authority, met with excellent success in bringing the 
unruly mob of settlers under control of the military 
code, and induced fresh immigration of a somewhat 



1617-1619] Charters and Burgesses. 73 

better class. He caused the abandonment of the non- 
progressive and unsatisfactory system of communal pro- 
prietorship, introduced individual allotment, and broadened 
the foundations of a prosperous State. 

Samuel Argall, " a sea-captain of piratical tastes," 
followed Dale in the governorship (161 7), but was soon 
recalled (1618), because the settlers complained bitterly 
of tyrannical and mercenary treatment at his hands. The 
liberals in England — prominent among whom were Sir 
Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Southampton — had now 
Liberals gain gained control of the corporation, and were 
th?coin°^ fighting the king through the colony, with the 
pany. result that Virginia gained in the next few 

years political privileges which were never after wholly 
relinquished ; the colonists, too, had, in the case of 
Argall, learned the power of organized resistance, — a 
lesson which long stood them in good stead. 

The colony was granted a representative assembly, — 
the first in America, — called the house of burgesses. 
First meet- which was first Convened in June, 1619. In 
ingofthe the words of the '• briefe declaration," written 
assem y. ^ ^^^ years later, " That they might have a 
hande in the governinge of themselves, y' was graunted 
that a general Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, 
whereat were to be present the Gov and Counsell w''^ two 
Burgesses from each Plantation, freely to be elected by 
the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie to have power to 
make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should 
by them be thought good and profitable for our subsis- 
tance." In this assembly Governor Yeardley (arrived 
April, 1 61 9) and his council had seats and took active 
part. The effect of this convention, composed of twenty- 
two burgesses, representing eleven " cities," " hundreds," 
and "plantations," was greatly to restrict the governor's 
power, heretofore quite absolute. Yeardley was a judi 



74 Southern Colonies. [Ch. I v. 

cious executive, and the settlement, in spite of many 
difficulties, prospered under his rule. Men with families 
began to come out from England: but an unfortunate 
elemen*- in the immigration of the time was the class 
Indented of indented servants, which not only included 
servants. convicts and vagabonds, but was largely made 
up of boys and girls entrapped on the London streets 
by press-gangs and hurried off to Virginia to be forci- 
bly placed in servitude for long terms of years, — the 
nucleus of the " poor white " element in the South 
Another and far worse disaster befell the colony this 
year (1619). Twenty African slaves, the first in America, 
Introduction were landed and sold in Jamestown from a 
of slavery. Dutcli man-of-war. This was the beginning 
of a large and wide-spreading traffic in human beings 
throughout the Southern colonies. 

In 1622 Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Governor 
Yeardley, and brought out with him, as a gift to the 
colonists, a most unexpected political con- 
political cession, — confirmation of all liberties pre- 
concessions. yJQusly granted, and definite assurances and 
provisions for the regular assemblage of the house of 
burgesses. It is no wonder that the king declared the 
London Company, with its free debates and bold experi- 
ments in popular government in Virginia, " a seminaiy 
for z. seditious Parliament." 

The following year (1623) the Indians combined 
against the whites, who had persistently maltreated them, 
and more than three hundred settlers were killed. This 
loss, which was a serious blow to the colony, was one 
. of the grounds urged by James in annulling 

comes'a royal the Company's charter (1624). Thereupon the 
province. settlers passed under the immediate control of 
the king, — which was, on principle, an improvement over 
government by a profit-seeking commercial company, \\<yy 



1619-1644-] Governme7it of Virginia, 75 

ever liberal the tendencies of the latter. The growing 
of tobacco had by this time become an important indus. 
try in Virginia, — forty thousand pounds being shipped 
to England in 1620, — and both James and his son and 
successor, Charles, received a considerable revenue from 
taxes on the product. 

31. Virginia during the English Be volution 
(1624-1660). 

After a succession of inefficient governors, Sir John 
Harvey came out in 1629, being the first serving under 
, direct royal appointment. Harvey proved 
administra- obnoxious to the colonists because of his des- 
"°"* potic rule and constant attempt to brow-beat 

the house of burgesses; by the latter he was "thrust 
out of his government " in 1635, whereupon he hastened 
to England to plead his cause before Charles. The 
king, much incensed at the unruly temper of his people, 
ordered the governor back ; but four years later, desirous 
of mollifying the Virginians, upon the profits of whose 
tobacco-raising he had an eye, the king supplanted Har' 
vey, and again sent out Wyatt. Under his mild rule 
the colony once more lifted its head. 

Sir William Berkeley succeeded Wyatt in 1642. 
While frequently quarrelling with the assembly, as all 
Berkeley's ^^e royal governors did, and eager for the 
first term. spoils of office, he was an educated, courtly 
gentleman and a courageous statesman, though often 
unscrupulous and overbearing. A man of strong 
passions and convictions, he was a pitiless hater of 
enemies of the State ; and in his estimation Puritans and 
Catholics were more prominent in that category than the 
marauding savages who skulked in the forests. A second 
Indian uprising (1644) was vigorously suppressed by the 
governor 



y6 Southern Colonies, [Ch. iv. 

During the great struggle in England between 
Charles I. and the Long Parliament (i 642-1 649), public 
sentiment in Virginia was with the king. 
Lo"gPar- There were but few Puritans in or about 
iiament. Jamestown, and they had for the most part 
come in from New England under Harvey's administra- 
tion ; their missionary labors in the conservative South 
were unwelcome, and they were warned " to depart the 
collony with all conveniencie," — while the Papists, who 
had settled Maryland in 1634 under Lord Baltimore,' 
were not tolerated in Virginia under any conditions. 
The execution of Charles (1649) naturally aroused deep 

. . indignation among the colonists, refugee Cava- 

refuge for Hers from England soon joined them by thou- 
Cavahers. g^nds, and Berkeley seriously, but in vain, 
invited Charles IL to take up his abode among his 
American subjects. The extent of this sudden influx 
of Cavalier immigration to the colony was so great that 
while the population of Virginia was but fifteen thousand 
in 1650, it had increased to forty thousand by 1670. 

Parliament, however, was not disposed to allow Vir- 
ginia to become a breeding-place for disloyalty to the 
Parliament- Commonwealth, and appointed commissioners 
smner^take (^^5^)' ^'^ whom the colouy was surrendered 
possession, with Surprising promptness. " No sooner," 
wrote Lord Clarendon, "had the 'Guinea' frigate an- 
chored in the waters of the Chesapeake than all thoughts 
of resistance were laid aside." The Puritan party at 
once took charge of the government, ruling with modera- 
tion and wisdom; and the colony, now allowed the utmost 
freedom in the conduct of its home affairs, prospered 
politically and financially under the Protectorate. 

Among the commissioners was William Claiborne, an 
able, resolute, and passionate Virginian, who was the 
leader of the Puritan party, and carried on a consider 



1631-1656.J P arlianiejitary Control. 77 

able trade with Nova Scotia, New England, and Manhat- 
tan. He had been much before the public of late years. 
, The grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore 
quarrel with was regarded by Virginians as an invasion of 
Maryland. i\^q\^ territory ; and Claiborne, holding a royal 
license to trade in that region, had planted a settlement 
(163 1) on Kent Island, in Chesapeake Bay, within the lim- 
its now claimed by Baltimore. Not acknowledging Balti 
more's proprietorship there, he was summarily ejected. 
The following year (1635) he led a party of rangers 
against Maryland, compelled the Catholic governor, Cal- 
vert, to fly to Virginia, and seized the government him- 
self ; being soon expelled, however, by Calvert, who had 
now secured Berkeley's support. As one of the Round- 
head commissioners to settle the affairs of the colonies, 
the turbulent Claiborne proceeded promptly to pay back 
some of his old debts against the Maryland Catholics. 
In 1654, Puritan invaders of Maryland, headed by Clai- 
borne, who was now Secretary of the Province of Vir- 
ginia, met the Catholics near the mouth of the Severn 
River and worsted them, thus again obtaining tempo- 
rary control of the northern colony. Three years latei* 
a compromise was reached between Baltimore and the 
Puritans. 

Richard Bennett was the first governor of Virginia 
under the Commonwealth (1652), being elected by the 
Governors burgesscs and receiving his authority from 
Commolf- them. He was succeeded by Edward Digges 
wealth. (1655) and Samuel Matthews (1656), both 

similarly chosen. They quarrelled with the burgesses, 
like the governors of old, but were worthy and sensi- 
ble men, and when outvoted generally yielded with grace. 
Clayborne's affair with Maryland and an unimportant 
Indian panic (1656) were the only clouds upon the hori- 
zon during this tranquil period. 



yS Southerfi Colonies, [Ch. IV. 

32. Development of Virginia (1660-1700). 

When Oliver Cromwell died (1658), his successor, 
Richard, was accepted in Virginia without question ; but 
Berkeley when the following year the latter abdicated, 
recalled. Berkeley was quickly recalled, as " the servant 

of the people," from peaceful retirement on his country 
estate ; and upon the Restoration (1660) the king's party 
The Res- ^^^ suffered again to take control of the gov- 
toration. ernment, and Claiborne was dismissed from 
the secretaryship. The return of the Royalists to power 
was accompanied in Virginia by harsh measures against 
Dissenters, by the enforcement of the Navigation Act 
under which the colonists were obliged to ship their to- 
bacco to English ports alone, and to import no European 
goods except in vessels loaded in England, and by the 
gift of the entire province to Lords Arlington and Cul- 
peper. The Puritans, angered by the harshness and 
profligacy of the church, by economic distress occasioned 
by the navigation laws, and by the ruthless invahdation 
of long-estabhshed land-titles, rose against the provincial 
government in 1663, and were not repressed until several 
of their leaders were hanged. The government became 
corrupt and despotic, and for many years the people 
were denied the privilege of electing a new house of 
burgesses, — the Royalist house chosen at the time of 
the Restoration holding over by prorogation. 

The Bacon rebellion (1676) was an outgrowth of the 
general discontent. The Indians were murdering set- 
The Bacon ^^'^'^ i^^ the frontier counties ; but Berkeley, 
rebellion. accused of having fur-trade interests at stake, 
and perhaps fearing to have the people armed, dismissed 
the self-organized volunteers who proposed to go out 
against the savages. Nathaniel Bacon, a popular young 
member of the council, honest and courageous, but indis- 



1 658-1692.] Bacon's Rebellion, 79 

creet, took it upon himself to raise a small force for the 
purpose. Berkeley refused Bacon a military commission, 
and declared him and his rangers rebels, and sought to 
crush them with the regular militia. Through the suc- 
ceeding four months Virginia was thrown into confusion 
by a warfare which resembled the stormy military duels 
with which the South American republics have been so 
often harassed. The opposing forces had varying for- 
tunes, and the fickle militiamen rallied under one standard 
or the other, according to the direction of the wind. Har- 
rying Berkeley out of Jamestown, Bacon burned the capital 
to ashes, " that the rogues should harbor there no more.** 
Tn October he died, either from poisoning or swamp- 
fever. His adherents, having no other cohesion than 
their sympathy for him, now scattered, and were caught 
by Berkeley, who executed twenty-three of them, and 
returned to Jamestown to renew his tyrannical policy for 
a time undisturbed. But even Charles tired of his gov- 
ernor's harsh and bloody doings, saying : " That old fool 
has hanged more men in that naked country than I have 

done for the murder of my father." Berkeley 
recaifed'by was summoned to England, his departure 
the king. being celebrated by the colonists with salutes, 
bonfires, and general rejoicings. The king refused him 
an audience upon his arrival in London, and Berkeley 
died (1677) "of a broken heart." 

The Royalists were now in full power, the friends of 
Bacon discreetly held their peace, and the governors 

were allowed to browbeat and rob the prov° 
under the ince at their will. The successor to Berke- 
Royalists. j^y ^^^ Colonel Sir Herbert Jeffries (1677) ; 
after him came Sir Henry Chicheley (1678), Thomas 
Lord Culpeper, one of the proprietors under the king's 
patent (1679), Lord Howard of Effingham (1684), Sir 
Francis Nicholson (1690), Sir Edmund Andros (1692). 



.'So Southern Colonies, [Ch IV. 

and Nicholson again (1698). During the administration 
■of Culpeper, who was a greedy extortionist, the tobacco- 
planters rose in rebellion because of the disaster to their 
industry brought on by the attempt of government to 
regulate prices and establish ports of shipment. The 
governor hanged a number of the offenders, and still fur- 
ther added to his unpopularity as a ruler and his noto- 
riety as a rascal by arbitrarily and for his own gain 
raising and lowering the standard of coinage. 

These closing years of the seventeenth century were 
j-Borry times for Virginia. Riots and consequent impris- 
onments and hangings were ordinary events. Nicholson 
told the gentlemen of the province that he would " beat 
them into better manners," or " bring them to reason 
with halters about their necks." The people were dis- 
contented, the province grew poorer as each new gov- 
ernor introduced some fresh extortion, immigration 
practically ceased, and the spirit of political independence 
was torpid. 

There were two or three gleams of sunshine during 
this period of almost total darkness. Delegates were 
„. ... sent to Albany in 1684 to represent the 

Virginia in ■' "^ •" 

the Albany province at the famous council to consider a 
CounciL pj^^ ^£ yj^^Qj^ fQj. repressing Indian outbreaks. 
It was one of the earliest attempts at the confederation 
of the colonies, — a scheme which Governor Nicholson 
persistently fostered, in the vain hope, it is said, of being 
placed at the head of the united provinces as governor- 
general. Again, under Nicholson's rule (1691), the house 
Establish- ^^ burgesses sent Commissary Blair to Eng- 
rrientofWil- land to solicit a patent for a college. This 
M^y"^ was obtained, and in 1693 the agent returned 
College. ^j^.|^ |.^g charter of "William and Mary," the 
second university in America, — Harvard, in Massa- 
chusetts, being the first and Yale, founded in 1701, the 



1 684-1/01.1 Progress of Virginia. 8 1 

third. The new college was set up at Williamsburg, 
whither Governor Nicholson had removed the capital of 
the province. Another event, quite as significant, sig- 
Arrivai of nalized the close of the century, De Riche- 
Huguenots, bourg's colony of Huguenots settled (1699) o^ 
the upper waters of the James and " infused a stream of 
pure and rich blood into Virginia society." 

Thus, in the ninety years from 1607 to 1697, the pop- 
ulation of Virginia had increased from a few score to 
nearly a hundred thousand ; the dreams of speedy wealth 
entertained by the patentees had been idle, but the hard 
labor of Englishmen, supplemented by the forced service 
of negroes, had built up a prosperous agricultural com- 
munity. More important still was it that, through all 
the vicissitudes of control, of government in England, 
and of party in America, the germ of popular govern- 
ment had grown into an established system, jealously 
watched by the colonies. 

33. Settlement of Maryland (1632-1635). 

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had been one of the 
members of the London Company as well as a councillor 
c 1 ^^ *^^ Plymouth Company. From the begin- 
vert, Lord ning of the century he had taken a strong 
Baltimore, interest in English colonization schemes. A 
staunch Roman Catholic, he was (1618-1625) principal 
Secretary of State to James L Baltimore's observation 
of the turbulent career of Virginia had convinced him 
that a commercial colony could not be successful, because 
of divided administration and the mercenary aims of non- 
resident stockholders. He went out with a colony to 
Newfoundland (1621) under a proprietary patent, but the 
inhospitable cHmate was against the project. In 1629 he 
landed at Jamestown with forty Catholic colonists ; but 
6 



82 Southern Colonies. [Ch. iv. 

the Protestant Virginians made it uncomfortable for the 
Romanists, and they returned to England. 

Baltimore thereupon secured a charter from King 
Charles I. for a tract of country north of Potomac river, 
„ the limits being imperfectly defined, — on 

becures a o r j ' 

charter for the north, the fortieth degree of latitude (the 
Maryland. gouthem boundary of the Plymouth Company's 
patent); on the west, a line drawn due north from the 
head of the Potomac. The lands embraced in this grant 
were within the bounds of Virginia, as specified in 1609, 
but had thus far not been occupied. At the king's re- 
quest the country was named Maryland, in honor of his 
queen, Henrietta Maria. Lord Baltimore died before the 
charter had passed the seal, and was succeeded in his 
„. „ ., rights and titles by his son Cecil. The prov^ 

His son Cecil ° ^ y 

succeeds ince of Maryland bemg made a palatinate, 
'™" Lord Baltimore was given almost royal powers, 

the Crown reserving feudal supremacy and exacting a 
nominal yearly tribute. The proprietor could declare 
Provisions of w^^» make peace, appoint all officers, includ- 
the charter, jng judges, rule by martial law, pardon crim- 
inals, and confer titles. He was to summon the freemen 
to assist him in making laws, which were to be similar 
to those of England, but did not require the king's confir- 
mation, and need not be sent to England. It was there- 
fore impossible for the Privy Council to check or inaugu- 
rate legislation in Maryland. The relations between the 
Crown and his lordship being thus established, it was 
left for the colonists and the proprietor to settle their 
relation under the charter; but no tax could be levied 
without consent of the freemen. 

In November, 1633, Cecil sent out his brother Leonard 
St. Mary's ^^ith two hundred colonists, — some twenty of 
founded. whom werc gentlemen, and the others laborers 
and mechanics, — and in March following they founded 



1629-1638.] Maryland Founded. 83 

a town near the mouth of the Potomac, calling it St. 
Mary's. The troubles with Claiborne, the Virginian 
Quarrel with who had made a settlement on Kent Island, 
Ciayborne. in the Chesapeake and within Baltimore's 
grant, have already been alluded to (page T]^. The 
dispute was a protracted one, and gave rise to much 
ill-feeling and some bloodshed. 

Many of Baltimore's colonists were Protestants, He 
was, however, sincere in his desire for complete religious 
Religious toleration, and did not appear to concern him- 
toieration. gelf in what his subjects beHeved. The Jesuit 
priests accompanying the party exerted their influence 
Humane ^^ behalf of a humane treatment of the In- 
treatmentof djans, and a cordial friendship was soon es- 
° '^°^' tablished with the resident tribes. As for the 
d"^good"^"* settlers, they were thrifty and industrious, held 
quality. their land in fee-simple, and up to the Com- 

monwealth period there was prosperity and content. 

The colonists were, however, not blind to their political 
rights, in the midst of this economic security. In primary 
Legislative assembly, in which proxies were allowed, the 
?l!e^"ro.^"^ freemen adopted a code of laws (1635) which 
prietor. the proprietor rejected because the former had 

presumed to take the initiative, and for two years the 
province was self-governed under the English common 
law. In 1638 a set of laws drafted by the proprietor was 
promptly vetoed by the assembly, and thus a deadlock 
was created. The matter was soon arranged by com- 
promise, with the utmost good-nature on both sides; 
there was created a representative house of burgesses, 
— in which, however, individual freemen might also ap- 
pear, — Baltimore was granted a poll-tax subsidy, and 
the people reserved to themselves the rights of self- 
taxation and legislative initiative. The anomalous sys- 
tem of allowing both freemen — of whom there were but 



84 Southern Colonies. [Ch. IV. 

one hundred and eighty-two in 1642 — and their repre 
sentatives to sit in the general assembly continued, with 
some variations, until 1647, when that body became truly 
representative. Three years later (1650), the legislature 
was divided into two houses, the burgesses sitting in the 
lower chamber, and the councillors and others especially 
summoned by the proprietor in the upper. 

34. Maryland during the English Bevolution (1642-1660). 

As in the other colonies, the outbreak of the civil war 
in England resulted in serious dissensions in Maryland. 
^ ,. . The Puritan party waxed strong, and sympa- 

Religious 1 . , • 1 r-i .1 1 . T -r^ 

dissensions thized With Claibome s intruding Protestant 
^"^^' colonists on Kent Island, The seizure of a 

Parliament ship by Deputy-Governor Brent, under orders 
from King Charles, resulted in popular disturbances. 
Claiborne Claiborne, taking advantage of the disorder 
drives out and comiug over from Virginia, seized the 
government at St. Mary's. Governor Calvert 
fled to Virginia, where Governor Berkeley gave him shel- 

but the latter ^^^ "^^'^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^° march back at the 
eventually head of a large force and suppress the Clai- 
borne administration, which was weak and 
mercenary', and had not commended itself to the people. 

Leonard Calvert died in 1647. William Stone, a Prot- 
estant, appointed Governor in 1648, favored Parliament 
Growth of ^^ against the king, but was sworn by the pro- 
the Protes- prietor to protect Catholics and give them an 
par y, ^^^\ chance with other colonists. The Prot- 
estant party grew apace; but while represented by the 
governor and council, was in the minority in the assem- 
bly. In 1649 a "Toleration Act" was passed, by which 
Sunday games, blasphemy, and abuse of rival sects were 
severally prohibited. " Whereas the enforcing of the 



1642-1657-1 Struggles in Maryland, 85 

conscience in matters of religion," ran the preamble, 
" hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous cons<^- 
quence, . . . and the better to preserve mutual love 
and amity among the inhabitants of the province," no per- 
son professing to be a Christian shall be " in any ways 
molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his 
or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof." 

The Parliamentary commissioners sent to reduce the 
colonies (1652) displaced Stone; but his great popu- 
Underthe l^nty caused them to reinstate him. Stone, 
Protectorate, however, now sided with the proprietor, who 
wished to banish all colonists who would not take the 
oath of fidelity to his lordship. The governor proclaimed 
the Puritan leaders as seditious, and ejected many. The 
Puritans therefore rose and called in Claiborne, who was 
one of the Parliamentary commissioners, to help them. 
In a pitched battle at Providence (1655) the Protestants 
won, and followed up their victory by the execution of 
several of Stone's followers and the sequestration of their 
estates. Stone himself, though sentenced to death, was 
reprieved. The party of Cromwell was now in full power 
in the palatinate. Claiborne renewed his claim to Kent 
Island ; but the Commissioners for Plantations do not 
appear ever to have recognized it. 

Baltimore was finally restored to his proprietorship by 
the English Commissioners for Plantations (1657), the 
Baltimore re- assembly accepted the situation, an Act of In- 
pr^prie^tor-'^ demnity was passed, the right of the colonists 
ship. to self-government was re-afifirmed, and the 

policy of toleration was again adopted. The result of 
the proprietor's restoration was to enlarge the political 
privileges of the people, and toleration succeeded Catho- 
lic supremacy in Maryland, — a reflex of the tendencies 
of the Great Rebellion in the mother-land. 



86 Southern Colonies. [Ch. IV, 



35. Development of Maryland (1660-1715). 

In i66i Charles Calvert, eldest son of Lord Baltimore, 
became governor of the province. His admirable ad- 
ministration lasted for fourteen years, during 
Calvert as which the colony greatly prospered, there being 
governor. ^ considerable immigration of Quakers and 
foreigners, — Maryland, with its religious toleration and 
beneficent laws, becoming widely known as a haven for 
the oppressed of all nations. Unhampered by the pro- 
prietor, the assembly was reasonable in its dealings with 
him, and harmony prevailed between them. The crops, 
particularly of tobacco, were profitable, the Indians were 
never a source of serious disturbance, and the people were 
contented and loyal. 

By the death (1675) of Cecil, Lord Baltimore, Charles 
fell heir to the family title and estates. Thomas Notly 
A spirit of ^^s s^"^ °^^ iroxii England as deputy-governor, 
unrest. In 1 68 1 the new proprietor secured the pas- 

sage of a law limiting the suffrage to those having free- 
holds of fifty acres or other property worth forty pounds. 
There was some popular uneasiness over this, as well as 
over the encroachments on the Maryland grant made by 
William Penn ; the Navigation Act, compelling the 
planters to sell their tobacco in English ports alone, was 
also fretting the people ; while the Protestants, most of 
whom were now of the Church of England, and bitter 
against Puritans and other Dissenters, as well as Catho- 
lics, deemed the Toleration Act an impious compact. 
Taking advantage of this spirit of unrest, and smarting 
under old grievances, Josias Fendall, an un- 
and Coode worthy demagogue, intrigued with a retired 
'®^°^*' clergyman named John Coode and instigated 

a revolt, in which the aid of some Virginians was ob- 
tained. The uprising was promptly suppressed ; but 



i66i-i72g.] Development of Maryland, 87 

under the influence of the revolution in England (1688) 
Coode again headed an insurrection under the auspices 
of the Association for the Defence of the Protestant 
Religion. In 1689 the associators seized the government 
of Maryland, under the flimsy pretext that they were up- 
holding the cause of William and Mary. They at first 
vron the favorable consideration of the king ; but in 1691 
Maryland Maryland was declared a royal province, and 
fovlr^rov- ^^'* Lionel Copley came out as the first royal 
ince. governor. Baltimore's interests were respec- 

ted, but he now became a mere absentee landlord. The 
powers of government rested in the Crown, the Church 
of England was established, and other Protestant sects 
were discountenanced while practically tolerated, but 
Catholics were persecuted. 

The capital was removed from St. Mary's, the centre 

of the Catholic interest, to Annapolis, — first settled by 

,. Puritans, and now controlled by the adherents 

Annapolis , i. , , i, 

becomes the 01 the establishment. Maryland s prosperity, 
"^^^^ • heretofore unrivalled in the colonies, now suf- 

fered a check, and for a term of years the royal adminis- 
tration was signalized by religious persecution and a low 
political and social tone, till in 171 5 the proprietorship 
was re-established. In 1729 the city of Baltimore was 
founded as a convenient port for the planters. The settle- 
ment and growth of Maryland had enforced two lessons 
which were never wholly forgotten, — the possibility, 
under official toleration, of bringing members of different 
'•eligious sects together in one civil community and gov- 
ernment ; and the comfort and prosperity attainable in a 
well-governed colony. 

36. Early Settlers in the Carolinas (1542-1665). 

Between Virginia and Spanish Florida a broad belt Qi 
territory lay long unoccupied. A Huguenot colony in 



88 Southern Colonies, [Ch. iv. 

1562 had had a brief existence there, and in consequence 
France claimed the countr}^ as her share of Florida. But 
the Spaniards drove out the French, and thus 
nial at- unwittingly left the field to the north clear for 

tempts. ^j^g English. In 1584 Amadas and Barlowe 

led a prospecting party to Roanoke Island (p. 38), and 
here also (1585, 1587) two of Raleigh's ill-fated colonies 
spent their strength. The swamp-girted coast had few 
harbors, the colonizing material did not possess staying 
qualities, the ill-treated Indians turned on the invaders of 
their soil, the sites of settlements were ill-chosen. For 
a long period of years after the failure of these enter- 
prises a prejudice existed against the middle region as a 
colonizing ground. 

But before Jamestown was two years old restless Vir- 
ginians had explored the upper waters of some of the 
Adventurous southem Hvcrs, and by 1625 the region was 
Virginians fairly familiar to hunters and adventurous 
N^rtlilcaro- land-seekers as far south as the Chowan. In 
^^"^- 1629 Charles I. gave "the province of Caro- 

lana" to Sir Roberth Heath, his attorney-general; but 
nothing came of the grant. The Virginia Assembly took 
it upon itself to issue exploring and trading permits in 
the southern portion of the Virginia claims, often called 
Carolana, to certain commercial companies, with the 
result that the character of the country became generally 
known. In 1653 a small colony of Virginia dissenters, 
Roger harassed by the Church of England party at 

^lams Albe. ^*^"^^' ^^^^^ ^^^ ^Y Roger Green to the banks 
marie. of the Chowan and Roanoke ; and there they 

planted Albemarle, the first permanent settlement in 
what is now North Carolina. 

Numerous colonizing parties and individual settlers 
ventured into North Carolina during the next twenty 
years, and purchased lands of the Indians, Among 



1652-1663.] The Carolinas. 89 

these were many Baptists and Quakers who had found 
iife intolerable in the northern settlements. The story 
,,. „ oroes that in 1660 a number of New Ensr- 

Miscellane- f ^ , . • . , , , , 

ous coioni- landers, desirmg to raise cattle, settled at the 
zing parties, j^^q^^j^ ^f q^^^ p^^j. Rjyer ; but they incurred 

the hatred of the Indians, and the colony soon melted 
away. The survivors, upon taking their departure, affixed 
New Eng- to a post a " scandalous writing, . . . the con. 
Ca^pe Fe\V tents whereof tended not only to the dispar- 
River. agement of the land about the said river, but 

also to the great discouragement of all such as should 
hereafter come into those parts to settle." This was 
Colonists said to have been found in 1663 by a company 
badoesaT °^ wanderers from the English community 
Clarendon, on the island of Barbados, which had been 
founded in 1625. These West Indian colonists, headed 
by a wealthy planter, Sir John Yeamans, established them- 
selves (1664), to the number of several hundred, on the 
Cape Fear, in the district which soon came to be known 
as Clarendon. 

37. Proprietorship of the Carolinas (1663-1671) 

It is probable that Charles II. knew little of these 
infant settlements of Virginians and Barbados men at 
Albemarle and Clarendon, — which were some three 
hundred miles apart, — or of the numerous small hold- 
ings between them : but he cautiously confirmed all private 
purchases from the Indians, in giving Carolina (1663) 
The Lords to a coterie of his favorites. Chief among 
rcqTre'th'l t^'^e Were the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke 
Carolinas. of Albemarle, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and 
Sir William Berkeley, then governor of Virginia. The 
proprietaries had been commanded to recognize the land- 
claims of the settlers already on the ground. William 
Drummond, a Scotch colonist in Virginia, was made 



90 Southern Colonies. [Ch. iv. 

governor of Albemarle, while Yeamans remained gov- 
ernor of Clarendon, these two districts roughly corre- 
sponding to the North and South Carolina of to-day. 
Early pros- '^^^ proprietaries at first authorized a popular 
perity. government on the simplest plan, and the set- 

tlers, particularly in Albemarle, looked forward to a 
prosperous career. A considerable trade in lumber and 
fur at once sprang up, and the crops were good ; for 
the soil proved richer than in any other of the American 
colonies then occupied. 

In 1667 Samuel Stephens succeeded Governor Drum- 

mond, who went to Virginia, where he became a leader 

in the Bacon rebellion. The Lords Proprietors 

An enlarge- . ^^ , , .11 

mentof m 1 665 secured a charter, with enlargements 
bounds. q£ ^^gjj. bounds ; their new grants in terms in- 
cluded the present territory of the United States between 
Virginia and Florida, to the Pacific. In 1670 was added 
the Bahamas, — neither the claims of Virginia nor of 
Spain being considered in the grants. Stephens was 
assisted by a council of twelve, his own appointees when 
the proprietaries did not choose them. The assembly, of 
twelve members chosen by the people, was a lower house. 
Immigrants This first legislature met in 1669; and actu- 
attracted. ^^^^ |-,y ^ desire to attract immigrants, declared 
that no debts contracted abroad by settlers previous 
to removal to Carolina could be collected in their new 
home. As a consequence, along with many desirable 
colonists flocking in from the Bermudas, Bahamas, New 
England, and Virginia, came others who were not worthy 
material for a pioneer community. The proprietaries 
themselves were quite liberal in their land-grants to 
inhabitants. 

Unfortunately for the Carolinians, the Lords Pro- 
prietors engaged John Locke, the famous philosopher, 
to devise for them a scheme of colonial government 
(1669). It was a complicated feudal structure, entitled 



1663-1669-1 Proprietorship of the Carolinas. 91 

the Fundamental Constitutions, not suited to any com- 
munity, old or new, and now chiefly interesting as a 
Locke's philosophical curiosity. The province was 
ufcoiS^ti-* ^° ^^ divided into counties, and they into 
tutions. seignories, baronies, precincts, and colonies ; 
and the people were to be separated into four es- 
tates of the realm, — proprietaries, landgraves, caciques, 
and commons. Locke defined " political power to be 
the right of making laws for regulating and preserving 
property." The objects sought to be attained in his 
constitution were avowedly the " establishing the inter- 
est of the lords proprietors," the making of a govern- 
ment " most agreeable to the monarchy, . . . that we 
may avoid erecting a numerous democracy," and the 
connecting political power with hereditary wealth. The 
leet-men, or tenants, were to be kept from asserting 
themselves by rigid feudal restrictions : " nor shall any 
leet-man or leet-woman have liberty to go off from the 
land of their particular lord and live anywhere else with- 
out license obtained from their said lord, under hand and 
seal. All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and 
so to all generations." The plan was the dream of an 
aristocrat ; it was an attempt to reproduce the thirteenth 
century in the seventeenth ; it was artificial and un- 
wieldy. While the rough backwoods-men could not grasp 
its intricacies or understand its mediaeval terms, they in- 
stinctively felt it to be a useless bit of constitutional 
romancing, and would have little to do with it. 

The only important result of the attempt was to un- 
settle existing conditions and, especially in Albemarle, to 
create a contempt for all governm.ent ; while the attempt 
of the proprietaries to regulate trade strengthened the 
too-prevalent spirit of lawlessness. Their officious lord- 
ships had set out to establish the Church of England; 
but the result of their interference was that the Quakers. 



92 Southern Colonies, [Ch. IV. 

elsewhere despised, took advantage of the spirit of dissent 
and obtained a firm hold over the Carohnians. 

During this period of unrest in the northern settle- 
_,. , .. ments WiUiam Savle, who had explored the 

The planting . ^ ^ , ^ ^ f 

of Charles- coast in 1667, planted (1670-1671) a colony 
'°"' *' on the first highland " at the junction of the 

Ashley and Cooper rivers, — the site of the Charleston 
of to-day. 



38. The Two Settlements of Carolina (1671-1700). 

The settlements at Cape Fear and Charleston being 
more orderly and promising than that at Albemarle, the 
N th c - proprietaries were henceforth more consider- 
linaneg- ate towards them. North Carolina, as it was 
pToprie-^* ^ ultimately called, was practically left to take 
taries. z2iX^ of itself for upwards of a decade, during 

which the neglected colonists made ' a" rough struggle 
for existence upon their crude clearings in the wilder- 
ness, those nearest the coast eking out their scanty 
income by trafficking with New England smugglers. 
Throughout the rest of the seventeenth century the pro- 
prietaries had but a nominal hold upon the people of the 
northern colony. In 1676 Thomas Eastchurch was ap- 
pointed governor of Albemarle, but he ruled only through 
deputies. Deputy Miller, collector of the king's customs, 
a drunken, vicious fellow, added to his unpopularity by 
attempting to browbreat the assembly. The colonists 
Th Cul- ^*^^^ ^^ arms (1678), imprisoned Miller, chose 
peper re- One Culpeper as collector of customs, and 
^ '°" convened a new assembly, which confirmed 

the revolutionary proceedings and controlled affairs un- 
til 1683, when Seth Sothel was sent out as governor. 
Sothel won the reputation of being an arbitrary and 
rapacious official, and in 1688 the unruly assembly 



1663-16S0.] The CaroliJias. 93 

deposed and banished him, despite the feeble remon- 
strance of the proprietaries. 

Meanwhile, Sayle's colony at Charleston made good 
progress, the proprietaries being lavish in their aid of the 
Charleston enterprise. While it was found that but few 
piopHe-^^* features of Locke's elaborate constitutions 
taries. could be put into practice in a frontier settle- 

ment, their lordships minutely managed the affairs of 
the colony, leaving little to the judgment of the inhab- 
itants. Sayle died the first winter, and Yeamans, the 
founder of the Cape Fear colony, succeeded him as gov- 
ernor (1672). Two years later (1674), the unpopularity of 
Yeamans led to his being supplanted by Joseph West, 
who ruled in a wholesome manner for twelve years. 

In 1682 the Clarendon settlements, now chiefly centred 
at Charleston, which had an excellent town government, 
„, .. embraced about three thousand persons. De- 

Ihrifty con- . . . ^ 

dition of spite trade restrictions, the exports of furs and 
aren on. tj^ber Were large for the time, much live-stock 
was reared, the cultivation of tobacco was extensively 
engaged in, and the supply of fish was abundant. 

The settlers were of various types, — among the colo- 
nists being groups of Englishmen from the Bahamas, 
Arrival of Barbados, Virginia, and New England ; while 
Huguenots, j^ 1679 French Huguenots began to arrive 
in considerable numbers, and had a permanent effect 
upon the character of the province. A small party of 
Scotch Presbyterians, flying from persecution at home, 
established themselves at Port Royal, — the southern- 
most of the English settlements. Two days' sail to 
Scotch Pres- the south lay the Spanish town of St. Au- 
roiSby gustine. The Spaniards, jealous of this en- 
the Spanish, croachment, and suffering as well from the 
raids of pirates who made their headquarters in Charles- 
ton, fell upon the little outpost of Port Royal (1686) 



94 Southern Colonies. [Ch. IV. 

and completely destroyed it. It was long held as 
a cause of complaint in the Carolinas that the proprie* 
taries peremptorily forbade the colonists chastising the 
Spanish, on the principle that a dependency had no right 
to carry on war against a country with which the home 
government was at peace. 

The Huguenots, who had settled chiefly in Craven 
County, were for a time denied all political rights, 
Colonial although the proprietaries favored them. The 
fn'sou""* buccaneers, who frequently appeared in 
Carolina, Charleston, were continually preying on Span- 
ish commerce, and causing their lordships much trepi- 
dation lest these sea-rovers should bring on a war with 
Spain. The dissenters, who were in the majority, were 
constantly warring with the Church of England party, 
represented by the proprietaries. The trade restrictions 
were exceedingly unpopular. Proprietary interference, 
even when well intended, unsettled the public mind. 
The colonists, while conducting their local political af- 
fairs on independent English models, were continually 
apprehensive of a change in the form of government, and 
in general nursed many grievances, petty and great. 

After the close of West's first term (1683) there was 
some turbulence, and within the following seven years a 
A period of succession of Unsatisfactory governors. Sothel 
turbulence. (1690) was driven out by the Southern colo- 
nists in 1 691, as he had been by the Northern (page 
93), and Philip Ludwell came on from Virginia to as- 
sume control. The proprietaries had at last 
linas re-'^^ changed their policy, and determined to rule 
united. \iQ\}ci Carolinas as one province, Ludwell be- 

ing the first governor (1691) of the united colonies. He 
was weak, however, and unable to restore order and pub- 
lic confidence. Under his successor, Thomas Smith, the 
assembly was granted a share in initiating legislation. 



1683-1700.] The Carolinas, 95 

Jt was not until John Archdale, a sound-headed and 
conservative Quaker, himself one of the proprietaries, 
The century Came out (1695) as govemor that the colonists 
Sroved'^ ccased their bickerings and the province set- 
conditions, tied down into a condition of peace and good 
order. Joseph Blake, Archdale's nephew, succeeded 
him (1696). Under Blake's benign rule the century 
closed in the Carolinas with a better popular feeling 
towards the Huguenots, complete religious toleration to 
all Christians except Catholics, and a marked increase in 
the material prosperity of the settlers. 

The Carolinas, which had been planted sixty years 
later than Virginia, were in 1700 still feeble ; and it was 
half a century before they began to be important colonies. 
The chief interest of the Carolinas in the development of 
America is the failure of the proprietors to stem or to 
deflect the tide of local government Nowhere does the 
innate determination of the Anglo-Saxon to control his 
own pohtical destiny more strikingly appear than in 
the contentions of the Carolinians with their rulers in 
England- 



96 TJie South. [Ch. v. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE 
SOUTH IN 1700. 



39. Keferences. 

Bibliographies. — Same as § 27, above. 

General Accounts. — Do3'le, Colonies, I. ch. xiii.; Cooke, 
Virginia, ch. xxiv. 

Special Histories. — Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation; Bruce, 
Social Life of Virginia, and Economic History of Virginia; S. 
Fisher, Alen, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, I. ch. i.; T. 
Page, Old Dominion, ch. iii.; A. Earle, Colonial Dames and Good 
Wives, and Home Life in Colonial Days ; M. Goodwin, Colonial 
Cavalier; A. Wharton, Colonial Days and Dames; Hall, Lords 
Baltimore, lecture vi.; Channing, Town and County Government; 
J. Ballagh, Slavery in Virginia; S. Weeks, Quakers; G. Bern- 
heim, German Settlements ; many publications in Johns Hopkins 
University Studies. See also, biographies of prominent men. 

Contemporary Accounts. — W. Hening, Statutes ; narratives 
enumerated in § 27, above. Reprints in A?nerican History told by 
Contemporaries, I. chs. ix., xiii.; publications of historical societies 
and commissions. 

40. Land and People in the South. 

Although of dissimilar origin, developed along some- 
Traits com- what different lines, and having striking indi- 
So"thern^^ vidual characteristics, the Southern colonies 
colonies possessed in common so many traits — cli- 
matic, geographical, social, and economic — that we may 
conveniently treat them as a distinct group. 

Virginia and Maryland, topographically similar, have 
numerous large and safe harbors, and the area of culti- 
vatioH extends to the coast. In the Carolinas there are 



Ch. v.] Land and People. 9/ 

scarcely any good harbors ; along the sea-shore are great 
sand-fields and pine-barrens, interspersed by swamps, 
but the country gradually slopes up to the Alleghany 
foot-hills, the soil improving with the rise in 
eograp y. Q\Q.yj2X\ox\. Throughout the Southern colonies 
the country is drained by broad rivers running down to 
the sea. 

It is estimated that in 1688 there were but twenty-five 
thousand persons, white and black, in Maryland, sixty 
thousand in Virginia, and four thousand in the 
Carolinas. The English were dominant in all 
the colonies, but their supremacy was more strongly 
marked in Virginia and Maryland than in the Carohnas, 
where foreign elements (i 700-1 750) increased rapidly in 
numbers and variety. The North Carolina lumbering in- 
dustry attracted many immigrants, — in the main French 
Huguenots, Moravians, and Germans, with some Swiss 
and Scotch-Irish interspersed. The Huguenots, a par- 
ticularly desirable class, were stronger in South Carolina 
than in any other American colony. While Virginia and 
Maryland were chiefly settled by colonists direct from 
England, the Carolinas were largely peopled from the 
other English colonies in North America, the Bahamas, 
and the West Indies. 

In the South the rich soil was widely distributed, the 
rivers served as convenient highways, and the climate 
Unimpor- was mild ; except for protection from the 
acter^oftiie Indians, there was no necessity in colonial 
villages. times for the massing of the people. Vil- 
lages were few, and the plantations were strung along 
the streams, often many miles apart and separated by 
dense forests. The legislatures of the Southern prov- 
inces from time to time endeavored to create trading and 
manufacturing towns by statute ; but with few exceptions 
these remained, down to the Revolution, merely places 
7 



98 The South. [Ch. v. 

of resort for elections and courts, with perhaps an inn, 
a jail, a court-house, and two or three dwellings. What 
trade there was at these cross-roads hamlets was of the 
most petty retail character, and the traders themselves 
were deemed of small consequence in the community. 
Jamestown remained the Virginia capital until late in the 
century, and during the sessions of the legislature and 
at gubernatorial inaugurations was a favorite resort for 
the wealthy and fashionable from all parts of the prov- 
ince ; but it was a small, untidy village, with few of the 
characteristics of a modern town except for its public 
buildings. Wilhamsburg, its successor, was but little 
better. The original capital of Maryland, St. Mary's, 
was not worthy the name of town ; but when, in the last 
decade of the century. Providence, rechristened Annapo- 
lis, became the seat of government, the new capital soon 
grew into an improvement on the old, several sightly 
public buildings were erected, and trade expanded with 
the increase of fashion. Charleston, the capital of South 
Carolina, was the most important town in the South ; the 
wealthiest planters in the colony lived there, leaving their 
estates to the care of overseers ; and trade, fashion, and 
politics centred in the village, which was well-built and 
handsome. 

41. Slavery and Servants. 

Society was divided into four classes, social distinc- 
tions being sharply drawn. The lowest stratum was 
Negro composed of the negro slaves, first introduced 

slaves. in 1 619. For many years the number of 

blacks was comparatively small, servile labor being 
mainly performed by convicts and indented servants. 
At first the African slave was looked upon as but an 
improved variety of indented servant, whose term of 
labor was for life instead of a few years. In 1650 there 



Ch. v.] SCavery and Servants, 99 

were but three hundred negroes in Virginia and fifteen 
thousand whites. The slave system fast extended, after 
this date, so that in 1661 Virginia had two thousand 
blacks, and by the close of the seventeenth century they 
nearly equalled the whites in number ; in South Carolina, 
in 1708, two thirds of the population were of the negro 
race. It was not until the blacks had become a numer- 
ous class that we find the laws regarding them savoring 
of harshness. They were especially severe after 1687, 
when a negro insurrection in Virginia inspired the whites 
with fear. The statutes for the repression of the slaves 
now became fairly ferocious. In the eye of the law they 
were simply chattels, being hardly granted the rights of 
human beings. A master might kill his slave, for he was 
but destroying his own property. Runaways could be 
slain at sight by any one, the owner being reimbursed 
from the public treasury. The laws against racial amal- 
gamation were savage, but the actual treatment of the 
slave by his owner was not so barbarous as the laws 
suggest, — especially in the two northern colonies of the 
Southern group. He was there comfortably housed, 
clothed, and fed, and indulged in many amusements. 
The raising of tobacco required constant care at certain 
seasons of the year, but there was much leisure, and the 
occupation was healthful. Work in the rice-swamps and 
indigo-fields, in the fierce summer heat of South Carolina, 
was extremely exhausting, and the negroes rapidly wore 
out ; for this reason there was a tendency on the part of 
the planters of that province to work them to their full 
capacity while still in their prime. Nowhere else in the 
South was slave life so burdensome, and nowhere was 
(he slave trade so active. 

Removed from the slaves by the impassable gulf of 
color, but nevertheless almost as much despised by the 
upper and middle class whites as the blacks, were the 



lOO The South. [Ch. V. 

indented white servants. While here and there among 
them were men capable, when freed from their bonds, 
, , , of rising to the middle and indeed the upper 

Indented , , r ■. , r , 

white ser- class, they were of low character frequently, 
^^"^^' such as transported convicts, the riff-raff of 

London, and in some cases children who had been kid- 
napped by lawless adventurers in the streets of the Eng- 
lish cities. As servants they were under no gentle bonds. 
The laws concerning them were harsh. They might not 
marry without the consent of their masters; an assault 
on the latter was heavily punished ; to run away was but 
to lengthen the term of service, and for a second offence 
to be branded on the cheek. For numerous petty offen- 
ces their service could be prolonged, and masters might 
thus retain them for years after the term fixed in the 
bond. 

42. Middle and Upper Classes. 



The middle class — small farmers and tradesmen — 
merged into each other, so that it was often difficult to 
draw the line between them. In South Caro- 
lina there was practically no middle class, and 
indented servants were few ; there existed in this colony 
a perfect oligarchy, — lords and their slaves. In all 
the Southern colonies the trader was despised by the 
upper class, which was composed of officials and wealthy 
planters. The men of the middle class were uneducated, 
rude, and addicted to gambling, hard-drinking, and rough 
sports; they were, however, a sturdy set, manly and 
liberty-loving, and gave strong political support to the 
planters. 

The upper class, in dress, manners, and political 
thought, resembled the English country gentlemen of 



Ch. v.] Middle and Upper Classes. loi 

their time. Here and there among them were men of 
fair scholarship, with degrees from Oxford and Cam- 
bridge ^ but the majority had but slight educa- 

Upper class. ,. *=* , • , , i , 1 - 

tion, such as was picked up haphazard Irom the 
parish parson, an occasional tutor, or a freed servant of 
more than ordinary attainments. The speech and man- 
ners of the young were badly atfected by being reared 
among slaves. The life of both men and women in these 
"good old colony days" was exceedingly monotonous; 
the chief charge of the former being the care of their 
plantation and negroes, and of the latter the superintend- 
ence of their domestic affairs and the training of house 
servants. There was much visiting to and fro among the 
county families, and dancing was a favorite evening 
amusement; and there were annual visits to the capital, 
where horse-racing, gambling, cock-fighting, and wrest- 
ling were favorite recreations. The Crown officers did 
much to keep the English fashions ahve, and the inaugu- 
ration of a governor was a brilliant social event. 

The manners of the gentry were better than those of 
the middle class ; nevertheless they drank overmuch, 
had a passion for gaming, and sometimes engaged in 
brawls at the polling-places. The fist, especially in 
Virginia and Maryland, was preferred to the duel as a 
means of setth'ng controversies. The landed gentlemen, 
born aristocrats, were indolent, vain, haughty, arrogant, 
and sensitive to restraint, — a natural outgrowth of the 
social conditions of the times. But they had great virtues 
as well as great faults. There was a keen sense of honor 
among them, and great pride of ancestry. They were of 
good, vigorous English stock, especially those who came 
after the Restoration, and in the struggle for independ- 
ence, two generations later, furnished to the patriot cause 
a high class of soldiers, diplomats, and statesmen. 



102 The South. [Ch. v. 

43. Occupations. 

There were practically no professions in Virginia and 
North Carolina. In Maryland and South Carolina a 
litigious spirit prevailed, and there arose a 
professional Small body of lawyers fairly well equipped. 
'"^°' Medicine was in a crude state. The clergy- 

men of the English Established Church — except in 
South Carolina, to which colony the London Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel sent out good material — 
were as a rule sadly deficient in manners and education^ 
although there were among them many men of superior 
attainments and noble character. This was especially 
noticeable in Maryland. The dissenting ministers were 
often of quite inferior calibre. 

Agriculture was the mainstay of the people, tobacco 
being the one great crop; although in the Carolinas rice 
and indigo came to be close rivals. Naval 
gric ure. ^^^^^^ y^^x^ also a Staple export. In South 
Carolina there was a greater area devoted to mixed 
tillage than elsewhere in the South, and corn and cotton 
were raised in considerable quantities. In both the 
Carolinas cattle-raising was an important industry, the 
large branded herds roaming the glades and forests at 
will. 

A great plantation, with its galleried manor-house, its 
rows of negro quarters, and group of barns and shops, 
Economic in- was in a large measure a self-sustained com- 
oUhe'^^"" munity. The planter needed little that could 
planter. be obtained elsewhere in his own colony or 

in the South, and conducted his commercial operations 
direct with England, the West Indies, and the North- 
ern colonies. Vessels came to his landing, bringing 
the supplies which he had ordered of his correspond- 
ents, and loading for the return trip with such material 



Ch. v.] Occupations, 103 

as he had for export. Under this independent system, 
whereby the rural magnate was his own merchant, and 
negro slaves his only workmen, neither general trade nor 
industries could flourish. Manufactures of every sort — 
even tables, chairs, stools, wooden bowls, and birchen 
brooms — were, along with many necessaries of life, 
imported from England and neighboring colonies. There 
were a few negroes on every plantation who were trained 
to the mechanic arts ; and a small number of white 
craftsmen found work in travelling around the country, 
doing such jobs as were beyond the capacity of the 
slaves. 

There was a considerable trade with the other conti- 
nental colonies, as well as with sister colonies in the 
West Indies and with England. Small vessels 
were built in Virginia and Maryland for the 
.coasting traffic, though Englishmen, New Englanders, and 
Dutchmen were the principal carriers. The independent 
methods of the planters, with their systems of barter and 
direct importations, suited the lordly notions prevalent 
among them; but the luxury was an expensive one, for it 
placed them quite at the mercy of their foreign corre- 
spondents. Tobacco was the chief export, and barter was 
based upon its value, which, despite legal restrictions, was 
subject to great fluctuation. The importance of the crop, 
as the basis of exchange, led to governmental supervision 
of its quality, which was uniformly excellent except in 
North Carolina, where public spirit was at a low stage. 
The importance attached by the government to this in- 
dustry is illustrated by a famous remark of Attorney- 
General Seymour. In 1692, when a delegation from 
Virginia were soliciting a charter for the College of 
William and Mary, on the ground that a higher educa- 
tion was necessary as a step towards the salvation of 
souls by the clergy, he blurted out: " Souls ! Damn your 



104 ^^^^ South. [Ch. V 

souls ; grow tobacco!" The Southern colonies had alsc 
a large and profitable export of lumber, tar, turpentine, 
and furs ; from the Carolinas beef was shipped in great 
quantities to the West Indies ; and rice, indigo, and cotton 
were sent to the Northern colonies and England. The 
trade with the Indians grew to considerable proportions 
in Virginia and Maryland, but was long neglected in the 
Carolinas. 

44. Navigation Acts. 

All manner of trade, however, was more or less ham- 
pered by the Parliamentary Acts of Navigation and 
Early at- Trade. In the time of Richard II. (1377- 
jTrotS Eng- 1399) ^^ had been enacted that " None of the 
lish shipping, king's liege people should ship any merchan- 
dise out of or into the realm, except in the ships of the 
king's ligeance, on pain of forfeiture.'* Under Henry 
VII. (1485-1509) only English-built ships manned by 
English sailors were permitted to import certain commo- 
dities ; and in the reign of Elizabeth (i 558-1603) only 
such vessels could engage in the English coasting trade 
and fisheries. 

The earliest English colonies were exempted by their 
charters from these restrictions, but under James I. 
„. „ (1603-1625) the colonies were included. For 

The Com- v J -?/ _ , , , 

monwealth many years the colonists did not heed the 

^^'^^' Navigation Acts ; in consequence, the Dutch, 

then the chief carriers on the ocean, obtained control of 
the colonial trade, and thereby amassed great wealth. 
Jealous of their supremacy, the statesmen of the Com- 
monwealth sought to upbuild England by forcing English 
trade into English channels ; and this policy succeeded. 
Holland soon fell from her high position as a maritime 
power, and England, with her far-spreading colonies, suc- 
ceeded her. The Act of 1645 declared that certain article.s 



1603-1663-] Navigatio7i Acts. 105 

should be brought into England only by ships fitted out 
from England, by English subjects, and manned by Eng- 
lishmen; this was amended the following year so as to 
include the colonies. In exchange for the privilege of 
importing English goods free of duty, the colonists were 
not to suffer foreign ships to be loaded with colonial 
goods. In 1651, a stringent Navigation Act was passed 
by the Long Parliament, the beginning of a series of 
coercive ordinances extending down to the time of the 
American Revolution : it provided that the rule as to the 
importation of goods into England or its territories, in 
English-built vessels, English manned, should extend to 
all products "of the growth, production, or manufacture 
of Asia, Africa, or America, or of any part thereof, . . . 
as well of the English Plantations as others ; *' but the 
term " English-built ships " included colonial vessels, in 
this and all subsequent Acts. 

Under the Restoration the Commonwealth law was con- 
firmed and extended (1660). Such enumerated colonial 
Under the products as the English merchants desired to 
Restoration, purchase were to be shipped to no other coun- 
try than England ; but those products which they did not 
wish might be sent to other markets, provided they did 
not there interfere in any way with English trade. In all 
transactions, however, " EngHsh-built ships," manned by 
" English subjects " only, were to be patronized. Three 
years later (1663) another step was taken. By an Act of 
that year, such duties were levied as amounted to prohi- 
bition of the importation of goods into the colonies except 
such as had been actually shipped from an English port; 
thus the colonists were forced to go to England for their 
suppHes, — the mother-country making herself the factor 
between her colonies and foreign markets. 

A considerable traffic had now sprung up between the 
colonies. New England merchants were competing with 



io6 The SoiLth. [Ch. v. 

Englishmen in the Southern markets. At the behest 
of commercial interests in the parent isle, an Act was 
Repression passecl in 1673 seriously crippling this inter- 
colonfal colonial trade ; all commodities that could 

trade. have been supplied from England were now 

subjected to a duty equivalent to that imposed on their 
consumption in England. From 1651 to 1764 upwards of 
twenty-five Acts of Parliament were passed for the regu- 
lation of traffic between England and her colonies. Each 
succeeding ministry felt it necessary to adopt some new 
scheme for monopolizing colonial trade in order to 
purchase popularity at home. It was 1731 before the 
home government began to repress the manufacture in 
the colonies of goods that could be made in England ; 
thereafter numerous Acts were passed by Parliament 
having this end in view. 

In brief, the mother-country regarded her American 
colonies merely as feeders to her trade, consumers of her 
England's manufactures, and factories for the distribution 
commercial ^^ ^""^^ Capital. Parliament never succeeded in 
policy satisfying the greed of English merchants, while 

in America it was thought to be doing too much. The 
constant irritation felt in the colonies over the gradual 
application of commercial thumb-screws — turned at last 
, beyond the point of endurance — was one of 

a cause of •' ^ 

the Revoiu- the chief causes of the Revolution. Had it 
not been that colonial ingenuity found frequent 
opportunities for evading these Acts of Navigation and 
Trade, the final collision would doubtless have occurred 
at a much earlier period. 

45. Social Life. 

The system of agriculture throughout the South was 
vicious. Few crops so soon exhaust the soil as tobacco ; 
and as this staple was the main reliance of the planters, 



Ch. v.] Social Life. 107 

it was usual to seek fresh fields as fast as needed, leav- 
ing the old planting grounds to revert to wilderness. 
Travel and From this, as well as from other causes al- 
roads. ready stated, the settlements became diffuse, 

and great belts of forest often separated the holdings. 
The far-reaching rivers were fringed with plantations, 
and the waterways were the paths of commerce. The 
cross-country roads were very bad, often degenerating 
into mere bridle-paths ; there was little travel, and that 
largely restricted to saddle or sulky, — the former pre- 
ferred; for there were numerous streams to ford or swim. 
It was not uncommon for travellers to lose their way and 
to be obliged to pass the night in the thicket. Inns were 
few and wretched ; but the hospitality of the planters 
was unstinted, every respectable wayfarer being joyfully 
welcomed as a guest to the manor-houses. 

Some glowing pictures of life in these "baronial 
halls," with their great open fire-places, rich furnishings 
Life at the imported from England, crowds of negro 
plantations lackeys, bounteous larders, and general air 
of crude splendor, have come down to us in the journals 
of pre- Revolutionary travellers. But the wealth of the 
large planters was more apparent than real. Their waste- 
ful agricultural and business methods fostered a specu- 
lative spirit, their habits were reckless, their tastes 
expensive, and their hospitality ruinous ; they were 
generally steeped in debt, and bankruptcy was frequent- 
The South Carolina planters, however, were more pros- 
perous and independent than those to the north of them. 

The means of education were limited. Governor Berke- 
ley, in his famous report on the state of the Virginia colony 
(1670), said: "I thank God there are no free 
schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not 
have these hundred years ; for learning has brought dis- 
obedience into the world, and printing has divulged them^ 



io8 The South. [Ch. v. 

and libels against the best of governments. God keep us 
from both!" Berkeley told the truth. There were not only 
no free schools, but scarcely any that were not free. 
Settlers were supposed to be capable of teaching their 
own children all that it was necessary for them to know. 
At the wealthiest homes tutors were kept, some of these 
being younger sons of good families in England who had 
come to America in an adventurous spirit, while now and 
then a freed servant who had seen better days was 
employed in this capacity, as was, a little later, the case 
in the family of the Washingtons ; occasionally the 
parish clergyman, when fitted for the task, instructed the 
youth of the district, and here and there a young man 
was sent to England to take a collegiate course. The 
upper class as a rule had but meagre scholastic training 
and few intellectual recreations, the middle class had 
even a scantier mental equipment, v/hile the poor whites 
were densely ignorant. Berkeley's bluntly expressed 
opposition to the education of the masses, as tending 
to foster political and social independence, perhaps 
reflected the sentiments of the majority of the ruling 
order. 

In Virginia there was manifested throughout the 
century an intolerant spirit towards dissenters by both 
. the ruling sects, Puritans and Churchmen, 

eigion. Catholics and Quakers were persecuted, pillo- 
ried and fined; but the sturdy Scotch-Irish Presbyterians 
made a bold stand, and were finally tolerated after a 
fashion. In Pennsylvania and Maryland there was more 
religious toleration than elsewhere in the colonies, — the 
Catholics were in political control until the triumph of 
William and Mary, when the Protestants came to the front 
and harassed the Catholics with exorbitant taxes. The 
turbulent population of North Carolina paid little atten- 
tion to religious matters throughout the seventeenth cen- 



Ch. v.] Social and Political. 1 09 

tury, although there were some flourishing congregations. 
There was no settled Episcopal minister there until 1701, 
and no church until 1702. The majority in South Caro- 
lina dissented from the Church of England, the Puritan 
element holding political power, and it was 1681 before 
an Episcopal church was built in Charleston; the Hugue- 
nots were not at first tolerated, but in 1697 all Protestant 
sects were guaranteed equal rights. 

The negroes and the poor whites formed the criminal 
class, — a not inconsiderable element in the Southern col- 
onies. The pillory or stocks, whipping-post, 
and ducking-stool were maintained at every 
county seat, and were familiar objects to all. Paupers, 
and indeed all persons receiving public relief, were com- 
pelled to wear conspicuous badges. 



46. Political Life, and Conclusions. 

The colonists, like their brothers across sea, were eager 
politicians, and their political methods were much the 

^ . ., same as in the mother-country. Attempts 
Political hfe. ^, . r t- i • . i . .1 • 

upon the part of Englana to regulate the rais- 
ing and selling of tobacco, in connection with the general 
policy of commercial and industrial control, led to fre- 
quent quarrels with the home government, which were 
harassing enough to the Americans, but served their 
purpose as a school of legislative resistance. The gen- 
tlemen controlled colonial affairs, but found efficient sup- 
port in the middle class ; to these two classes suffrage 
was for the most part restricted. 

The political organization throughout the South was 
closely patterned after that of England, the governor 
Adminis- Standing for the king, the council for the House 
tration. of Lords, and the assembly or house of bur- 

gesses for the Commons. There were four sources of 



lie The South, ]^Ch '/ 

revenue: (i) quit-rents, payable to the king or the pro- 
prietors ; (2) export and port duties, for the oenefit ot 
the provincial government ; (3) any duties levied by and 
for the assembly ; (4) regular parish, county, and pro- 
vincial levies. The last mentioned were payable in 
tobacco, and the. others as might be specified. The 
system of taxation was simple, and was based chiefly on 
lands and negroes ; it was moderate in extent, but not 
always paid cheerfully, — in North Carolina, especially, 
there was chronic objection to taxes in any form. 

The salaries of the government officials were small j 
but the governor — who was the executive officer, and 
Official might lawfully have ruled his little realm in 

rapacity. most despotic fashion, had not the assem- 
bly, as the holder of the purse-strings, continually kept 
him in check — considered the salary a small part of his 
income. By farming the quit-rents, taking fees for patent- 
ing lands, and assessing office-holders, he reaped a rich 
harvest. Broken-down court favorites considered an ap- 
pointment to the colonies as governor a means of re- 
trieving fallen fortunes, and made little attempt to conceal 
their sordid purpose. The members of the council were 
often admitted to a share of the spoils, and official 
morality was much of the time in a low condition. 

Thus we see that in the Southern colonies, in the year 
1700, there were three sharply-defined social grades among 
the whites, — the upper class, the middle class, 
ummary, ^^^ ^^^^ indented servants ; with a caste still 
lower than the lowest of these, the negro slaves. The 
status of the bondsmen, both white and black, was 
morally and socially wretched, and from them sprang the 
criminal class: the former were the basis of the "poor 
white trash," which remains to-day a degenerating influ- 
ence in the South. The presence of degraded laborers 
made all labor dishonorable, and trade was held in con- 



Ch. v.] Summary. in 

tempt by the country gentleman. The economic condi- 
tion was bad, there were practically no manufactures, 
the methods of the planters were wasteful, there pre- 
vailed a wretched system of barter based on a fluctuating 
crop, and finances were unsettled. The manners even of 
the upper class were often coarse, while those of the 
lowest whites were not seldom brutal. The people were 
clannish and narrow, having little communication or 
sympathy with the outer world. Political power was for 
the most part in the hands of the aristocratic planters, 
backed by the middle class ; the people at large exer- 
cised but slight control over public affairs. Religion was 
at a low ebb, especially in the established church ; Bishop 
Meade says, "There was not only defective preaching, 
but, as might be expected, most evil living among the 
clergy." The professions of law and medicine were 
scarcely recognized. In looking back upon the life of 
the Southern colonists at this time we cannot but con- 
sider their social, economic, and moral condition as poor 
indeed; but it must be remembered that there was latent 
in them a sturdy vitality ; these men were of lusty English 
stock, and when the crisis came, a half century later, they 
were of the foremost in the ranks and the councils of the 
Revolution. 



112 New England Colonies. [Ch. VI. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE COLONIZATIOJSr OP NEW ENGLAND. 
(1620-1643). 



47. References. 

Bibliographies. — Winsor, III. 244-256, 283-294; Larned, 
Literature of American History, 72-92; Avery, II. 421-423; 
Andrews, Colonial Self -Government, ch. xx.; Green, Provincial 
America, ch. xix.; M. Wilson, Reading List on Colonial New Eng- 
land; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 109-123. 

Historical Maps. — No. 2, this volume {Epoch Maps, No. 2); 
Doyle, Colonies, II.; MacCoun, Winsor, and school histories al- 
ready cited. 

General Accounts. — J. Palfrey, New England, I. 47-268; 
Winsor, III. chs. vii.-ix. ; Doyle, II. chs. i.-vii.; Osgood, Colonies; 
Lodge, Colonies, 341-351, 373-375, 385-387T 397. 398; Avery, 
II. chs. v.-viii.; Andrews and Greene, as above, passim; Chan- 
ning, United States, I. ch. xiv.; B. James, New England; G. 
Bancroft, I. 177-288; Hildreth, I. chs. vi., vii., ix.; Y'lske, Begin- 
nings of New England, I. chs. i.-iii.; Eggleston, Beginners of a 
Nation; L. Mathews, Expansion of New England, chs. i.-iii. 

Special Histories. — Ellis, Puritan Age and Rule; E. Bying- 
ton, Puritans in England a?id New England, and Puritan as Colo- 
nist and Reformer; D. Campbell, Puritan in Holland, England, 
and America; M. Dexter, Story of the Pilgrims; J. Brown, Pil- 
grim Fathers ; W . Cockshott, Pilgrim Fathers ; F. Noble, Pilgrims ; 
J. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic; D. Howe, Puritan Republic. — 
Massachusetts: W. Northend, Bay Colony; B. Adams, Emanci- 
pation of M assachuseits ; C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Massa- 
chusetts History ; Winsor, Memorial History of Boston; H. Lodge, 
Boston. — Connecticut : C. Levermore, Republic of New Haven; 
IE. Atwater, New Haven Colony; Andrews, River Towns of Con- 
necticut; C. Orr, Peguot War; state histories by Johnston (Com- 



1606-1614] Early Atte^npts, 113 

monwealths), Trumbull, and Morgan, — Rhode Island : I. 'Kxokv- 
ma.n, Rhode Island: its Making and its Meaning; Arnold, Field, 
and Richman (Commonwealths). — New Hampshire: Belknap 
and Sanborn (Commonwealths). — Maine: Williamson. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Morton, New England's Memo- 
rial (1669); Bradford, Plymouth Plantation; Winthrop, New 
England; Johnson, W onder-W orking Providence ; Wood, New 
England's Prospect; New England's First-Fruits ; Shepard, Au- 
tobiography. — Reprints: torce, Jracts; Arber, Pilgrim Colo- 
nists; Young, Chronicles of Pilgrim Fathers, and Chronicles of 
Massachusetts; Jameson, Original Narratives; American History 
told by Contemporaries, I. part v.; and the many publications of 
colonial and town record commissions, state and local historical 
and ajatiquarian societies, Prince Society, Gorges Society, etc. 

48. The New England Colonists. 

It will be remembered that the commercial company 
chartered by King James I. (1606) to colonize Virginia, 
as all of English America was then styled, consisted of 
two divisions, — the London (or South Virginia) Company, 
and the Plymouth (or North Virginia) Company. We 
have seen how the London Company planted a settlement 
at Jamestown, and what came of it. The Plymouth Com- 
pany was not at first so successful. In 1607, the same 
year that Jamestown was founded, the Plymouth people 
— urged thereto by two of their members, Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges, governor of the port of Plymouth, and 
Sir John Popham, chief-justice of England — sent out 
The ^ party of one hundred and twenty colonists to 

Popham the mouth of the Kennebec, headed by George 
colony- Popham, brother of Sir John ; but the follow- 

ing winter was exceptionally severe, many died, among 
them Popham, and the survivors were glad of an oppor- 
tunity to get back to England (1608). 

In 1614 John Smith, after five years of quiet life in 
England, made a voyage to North Virginia as the agent 
Smith's and partner of some London merchants, and 
voyage to returned with a profitable cargo of fish and 
England. furs. The most notable result of his voyage, 
however, was the fact that he gave the title of New 



114 New England Colonies, [Ch. VI. 

England to the northern coast, and upon many of the 
harbors he discovered, Prince Charles bestowed names 
of English seaports. During the next half-dozen years 
there were several voyages of exploration to New Eng- 
land, its fisheries became important, and some detailed 
knowledge of the coast was obtained ; but its colonization 
was not advanced. 

Chief among the patrons of these enterprises was Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges. In 1620 Gorges and his associates 
The new Secured a new and independent charter for 
dlane^^ the Plymouth Company, usually known as the 
(1620). Council for New England, wherein that cor- 

poration was granted the country between the fortieth 
and forty-eighth degrees of latitude, — from about Long 
Branch, N. J., to the Bay of Chaleurs. The region re- 
ceived in this charter the name which Smith had bestowed 
upon it, — New England. To the company, consisting of 
forty patentees, was given the monopoly of trade within 
the grant, and its income was to be derived from the 
letting or selling of its exclusive rights to individual or 
corporate adventurers. It had power, also, both to es- 
tabhsh and to govern colonies. But the enterprise lacked 
capital and popular support. Virginia, founded as an 
outlet for victims of economic distress in England, ap- 
peared to absorb all those who cared to devote either 
money or energy to the planting of America. The reor- 
ganized Plymouth Company would doubtless have waited 
many years for settlements upon its lands, had not aid 
come from an unexpected source. 

The persecution of a religious sect led to the perma- 
nent planting of New England. The English Protestants 
. under Elizabeth may be roughly divided into 

groups in several groups: (i) The great majority of the 
ngiand. people, including most of the rich and titled, 
adhered to the Church of England; as the "establish- 



is6o-i62o.] English Protestantism. 115 

ment," or State religion, it retained much of the Catholic 
ritual and creed, but with many important omissions and 
modifications. (2) Besides the Catholics, few and op- 
pressed, there was a distinct class who wished to stay the 
progress of the Reformation and more closely to follow 
Rome. (3) The Puritans sought to alter the forms of 
the church in the other direction, but they were them- 
selves divided into two camps : {ci) the conformists, who 
would go further than the establishment in purifying the 
State religion and in rejecting Romish forms, yet were 
content to rem.ain and attempt their reforms within the 
folds of the Church ; and {b^ the dissenters, who had 
withdrawn from the Church of England and would have 
no communion with it. The dissenters were themselves 
divided: (i) there were those who wished to be ruled 
by elders, on the Presbyterian plan, such as had been 
introduced by Calvin and his followers in Switzerland 
and France, by Zwingli in Switzerland and Germany, 
and by John Knox in Scotland; then there were (2) the 
Independents, or Separatists, who would have each con- 
gregation self-governing in religious affairs, — a system in 
vogue in some parts of Germany. " Seeing they could 
not have the Word freely preached, and the sacraments 
administered without idolatrous gear, they concluded to 
break off from public churches, and separate in private 
houses." Sometimes the Separatists were called Brown- 
ists, after one of their prominent teachers, Robert Browne. 
The Presbyterians and Independents were alike few in 
number in Elizabeth's time ; but as the result of persecu- 
tion under James I., and the impossibility of obtaining 
concessions to the demand for reform, these sects steadily 
gained strength. The Independents in particular were 
harshly treated, so that many fled to Holland, where 
there was religious toleration for all ; and from this branch 
of the Separatists came the Pilgrims, who first colonized 
New England. 



1 16 New England Colonies, [Ch. vl 



49. Plymouth colonized (1620-1621). 

Among those who thus departed to a strange land, to 

dwell among a people with habits and speech foreign to 

theirs, were about one hundred yeomen and 

The Scrooby , , r ., t j a ,. 

congrega- artisans, members of the Independent congre- 
''o"- gation at Scrooby, a village on the border be- 

tween Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Headed by their 
wise and excellent minister, John Robinson, and the 
ruling elder of the church, William Brewster, 
peifdents^in the party first settled at Amsterdam (1608), 
Holland. }^^^ eady^ the following year moved to Leyden. 
Here, joined by many other refugees, they lived for ten 
years, laboring in whatever capacities they could obtain 
employment. 

They lived peacefully enough in Holland, free from 
religious restraints, but remained Englishmen at heart; 
they saw with dissatisfaction, as the years went on, that 
there was no chance for material improvement in Leyden, 
and that their children were being made foreigners. 
After long deliberation they resolved to emigrate again, 
this time to America, far removed from their old perse- 
cutors, and there in the wilderness to rear a New Eng- 
land, where they might live under English laws, speak 
their native tongue, train their children in English 
thought and habits, establish godly ways, and perchance 
better their temporal condition. Mingled with these 
aspirations was a desire to lay " some good foundation, 
or at least make some way thereunto, for ye propagating 
& advancing ye gospell of ye kingdom of Christ in 
those remote parts of ye world ; yea, though they should 
be but even as stepping-stones unto others for ye per- 
forming of so great a work." 

Obtaining a grant of land from the London (South 
Virpnia^ Company, and a promise from the king that 



1 620.] The Pilgrims. WJ 

they should not be disturbed in their proposed colony if 
they behaved properly, the emigrants sailed from Leyden 
Em-vration ^^ Southampton, where they were to take pas- 
te America, sage for the New World. These Pilgrims, as 
they styled themselves, were about one hundred in 
number, and under the excellent guidance of Brewster, 
Robinson remaining behind with the majority of the 
congregation, who had decided to await the result of 
the experiment. 

Possessing little beyond their capacity to labor, the 
Pilgrims had found it necessary to make the best bargain 
possible with a number of London capitalists for trans- 
portation and supplies. A stock partnership was formed, 
with shares at ten pounds each, each emigrant being 
deemed equivalent to a certain amount of cash subscrip- 
tion ; all over sixteen years of age were counted as equal 
to one share, and a sliding scale covered the cases of 
children and those who furnished themselves with sup- 
plies. All except those so provided drew necessaries 
from the common stock. There was to be a community 
of trade, property, and labor for seven years, at the end 
of which time the corporation was to disband, and the 
assets were to be distributed among the shareholders. 
The entire capital stock at the beginning was seven 
thousand pounds, from a quarter to a fifth of this being 
represented by the persons of the emigrants. The Lon- 
don partners sent out several laborers on their account. 

The voyage of the " Mayflower " is one of the most 
familiar events in American history. Its companion ves- 
sel, the "Speedwell," was obliged to return to 
ing. £j^g]^j^j^ because of an accident, and thus sev- 
eral of the original company remained behind. The 
adventurers first saw land on the ninth of November ; 
it was the low, sandy spit of Cape Cod. Their purpose 
had been to settle in the domain of the South Virginia. 



Il8 New England Colo7iies, [Ch. Vl. 

Company, somewhere between the Hudson and the Del- 
aware ; but fate happily willed otherwise. The captain, 
thought to be in the pay of the Dutch, who were trad- 
ing on the Hudson, professed to be unable to proceed 
farther southward because of contrary winds. After 
beating up and down the bay between the cape and the 
mainland, and exploring the coast here and there, the 
Pilgrims landed at a spot "fit for situation" (Dec. 22, 
1620). 

With true English instinct for combination against 
unruly elements, the Pilgrims had (November 1 1), while 
The social lyi^g o£E Cape Cod, formed themselves into 
compact. a body politic under a social compact. This 
notable document read as follows : " We whose names 
are under-writen, the loyall subjects of our dread sove- 
raigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God of Great 
Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of ye faith, 
&c., haveing undertaken, for ye glorie of God and ad- 
vancemente of ye Christian faith, and honour of our 
king and countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in 
ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents 
solemnly and mutualy in ye presence of God, and one of 
another, covenant and combine ourselves togeather into 
a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preser- 
vation and furtherance of ye ends aforesaid ; and by 
vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just 
and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and 
offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete 
and convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto 
which we promise all due submission and obedience." 

The compact was signed by the adult males of the 
company, forty-one in number, only twelve of whom bore 
the title of " Master," or " Mr.," — then of some signifi- 
cance. They elected Deacon John Carver as their first 
governor, styled the place where they landed Plymouth, 



1620-1621.] The First Whiter. 119 

and entered upon the serious business of building New 
England. 

An exceptionally mild winter had opened, yet it was 
with difficulty that they could provide adequate shelter 
The first ^^r themselves, much less secure comfortable 
winter. quarters. The stock of food they had brought 

with them soon failed, and what was left was not whole- 
some; in consequence of hunger and exposure, sickness 
ensued, and about one half of the company died. Among 
those who succumbed was Governor Carver; in his place 
was chosen William Bradford, who held the office for 
twelve years, was the historian of the colony, and until his 
death (1657) the leading man among his people. Those 
who survived this terrible ordeal were so few and feeble 
that under ordinary conditions the Indians could readily 
have massacred them. But owing to a pestilence which, 
a few years before, had wasted the New England coast 
tribes, it was many years before the aborigines were strong 
enough seriously to annoy the Plymouth colonists. 

Had the Pilgrims been ordinary colonists, they would 
no doubt have abandoned their settlement and returned 
„ . in the vessel that brou2:ht them. But they 

Persistence . „ . ° , , 

amid adver- Were of Sterner stuii than the men who suc- 
^'^^' cumbed to less hardship at Roanoke and on 

the Kennebec, and their religious conviction nerved them 
to a grim task which they believed to be God-given. It 
was not for faint-hearts to found a new Canaan. 

In November, 162 1, fifty more of the Leyden congre- 
gation came out. By this time the people of Plymouth 
had, amid many sore trials, erected log-houses enough 
for their use, built a rude fort on the hill overlooking the 
settlement, made a clearing of twenty-six acres, and had 
laid by enough provisions and fuel for the winter. But 
the addition to the number of mouths materially de- 
creased the per capita allotment of rations. 



I20 New England Colonics. [Cii. VI 

The Pilgrims having settled upon land for which they 
had no grant, it had become necessary for the London 

adventurers, who backed tne enterprise, to 
the^Ply-"^"™ secure a patent from the reorganized Plymouth 
mouth Com- Company. That company was working under 

a charter from the king as the feudal lord, 
giving it privileges of settlement, trade, and government ; 
rights to colonize and trade, it was authorized to parcel 
out to others, in the form of patents, and a document of 
this character was issued to the adventurers in May, 1621. 



50. Development of Plymouth (1621-1691). 

The industrial system inaugurated at Plymouth was, 
like that adopted for Jamestown, pure communism. The 
The indus- governor and assistants organized the settlers 
trial system, into a working band, all produce going into a 
common stock, from which the wants of the people were 
first supplied : the surplus to be the profit of the corpora- 
tion. As in the case of Jamestown, the London partners 
were not pleased with the results of the speculation, and 
in harshly expressing their dissatisfaction soon fell into 
a wordy dispute with the colonists. 

Thirty-five new settlers came out in the autumn of 1622, 
and thereafter nearly every year brought increase in the 
Dissatisfac- number ; but the partners failed to ship sup- 
tK)n of the plies with the new-comers, deeming it proper 
partners. that the colony should be self-supporting; and 
this neglect still further strained existing relations. 

In 1624 the communal system was partially abandoned, 
each freeman being allowed one acre as a permanent 
Communal holding. This land was to be as close to the 
system par- town as possible ; for the climatic conditions, 
abandoned, the necessity for protection against Indians, 
and the desire for ease of assemblage at worship, made it 



1621-1627.] Plymoutlu 121 

important that the settlement should be compact, — in 
sharp distinction to the scattered river-side plantations 
of the South. In 1627 each household was granted 
twenty acres as a private allotment ; but for many years 
there existed as well a system of common tillage and 
pasturage similar to that with which the colonists were 
familiar in the English villages. About the same time 
(1627) the colonists purchased the interest of their Lon- 
don partners for eighteen hundred pounds, and became 
wholly independent of dictation from England. 

Up to this time many of the new colonists were sent 
or selected by the London shareholders, and were not 
„,. -^M always congenial to the Pilgrims. It now 

The Pilgrims i . , , . . , 

obtain sole rested With them to invite whom they might; 
control. ^^^ ^g ^ result many of their faith from Eng- 

land were brought over. In 1643 there were three thou- 
sand inhabitants in the eight distinct towns comprising 
Plymouth colony ; there were also several independent 
trading and fishing stations along the coast established 
under the auspices of the Plymouth Company. The 
colony was beyond the danger of abandonment. 

The early history of Plymouth is a story full of pain- 
ful details of suffering. It was a long time before the 
people became inured to the rigorous climate ; the te- 
dious winters were often seasons of much hardship and 
privation. The life they led was toilsome, but they bore 
up under it bravely. 

The original colonists were kind and considerate to the 
aborigines, and for many years were the firm friends and 
^ , . allies of Massasoit, head chief of the Pokano- 

Relations , , i i i i i . i xtti • 

with the kets, whose lands tney had occupied. Whites 
Inuians. -yvere not always as comfortable neighbors as 
the savages. Thomas Weston, one of the London part- 
ners, sent out (1622) an independent colony of seventy 
men to Wessaugusset, about twenty-five miles north of 



122 New England Colonies, [Ch. VL 

Plymouth. They were an idle, riotous set, and after 
making serious trouble with the Indians, a year or two 
later returned to England. In 1623, Robert 
with white Gorges, SOU of Ferdinando, was appointed 
neighbors, governor-general of the country by the Council 
for New England, and in person attempted to form a 
colony upon land patented to him " on the northeast side 
of Massachusetts Bay," but soon abandoned his enter- 
prise and returned home. In 1625, Captain Wollaston 
appeared with a number of indented white servants and 
started a colony on the site of the Ouincy of to-day. 
But this form of slave labor not being suited to the 
democratic conditions of New England life, Wollaston 
took his servants to the more congenial climate of Vir- 
ginia, and his plant was taken possession of by his part- 
ner, Thomas Morton, who styled the settlement Merry- 
mount. Morton was much disliked by the Puritans, who 
were scandalized at his free-and-easy habits, regarded the 
apparently innocent sports in which he encouraged his 
people as "beastly practices," and charged him with the 
really serious oifence of selling rum and firearms to the 
natives. The Plymouth militia dispersed the merrymak- 
ers and sent Morton to England (1628). 

Several Church of England men, representatives of 
Robert Gorges, — who had a patent for a strip of terri- 
tory ten miles coastwise and thirty miles inland, — had 
come out in 1623, among them William Blackstone, set- 
tling on Shawmut peninsula, now Boston, Thomas Wal- 
ford at Charlestown, and Samuel Maverick at Chelsea. 
Blackstone afterwards vacated his peninsula in favor of 
the Puritans of Charlestown. Maverick, in his paHsaded 
fort, was a man of importance, and afterwards a royal 
commissioner to the colonies. There was also a small 
trading station at the mouth of the Piscataqua, and 
another at Nantasket, with here and there an individual 



:62o-i63S.] Gove7m7ne7tt of PlymoiUh. 123 

plantation. With most of these the Plymouth people 
had business relations, but little else in common. 

Plymouth was at first governed in primary assembly 
with a governor and assistants elected by popular vote. 
Form of -^^ the colony grew and new towns were 
goyernment. organized by compact bodies of people detach- 
ing themselves from the parent settlement, it became 
inconvenient for all of the people frequently to assemble 
in Plymouth. The representative system was adopted 
in 1638, each township sending two delegates to an ad- 
ministrative body called the General Court, in which the 
governor and assistants also sat. It was some years later 
before the General Court was given law-making powers, 
this privilege being retained by the whole body of free- 
men. For sixteen years the laws of England were in 
vogue, but in 1636 a code of simple regulations was 
adopted, more especially suited to the community. The 
assistants, with the aid of the jury, tried cases as well as 
aided the governor in the conduct of public affairs. 
Purely local matters were managed by primary assemblies 
in the several towns, and petty cases were tried by town 
magistrates. 

Many features of American government and character 
may be readily traced to the influence of Plymouth. 
^ . _ It was the first permanent colony in New 
tics of Ply- England; it had become well established 
mouth. before another was planted, and therefore 

served in some sense as a model for its successors. It 
was a community of Independents acting without a 
charter, working out their own career practically free 
from royal supervision or veto, and with an elective gov- 
ernor and council. The Plymouth people were closely 
knit : their struggle for existence had been hard, and it 
had taught them the value of solidarity ; they set the 
example of a compact religious brotherhood ; they were 



124 7V^2£^ England Colonies, [Ch. VI. 

good traders, cultivated peace with the Indian tribes, and 
advanced their towns only so fast as they needed room 
for growth and could hold and cultivate the land. In 
many respects Plymouth may be regarded as a modern 
American State in embryo. 

Three several times (1618, 1676-77, and 1690-91) 
the colony endeavored, as a measure of self-defence, to 
^ ., „ obtain a charter from the Crown; but failed in 

Futile effort , ,. . ,- i , , . 

to obtain a cach apphcation, — at first through the m- 
charter. fluence of the prelates, and afterwards because 
of the jealousy of its neighbors. Finally, in 1691, Ply- 
mouth was incorporated with Massachusetts and lost its 
identity. 

51. Massachusetts founded (1630). 

The Plymouth Company did business in a rather hap- 
hazard way. Land-grants were freely made to all man- 
Boundary ner of speculators, many of them members of 
disputes. ti^jg corporation, with liitle or no regard to the 
geography of New England. These grants were dealt 
out to third parties, often with a lordly indifference to 
previous patents. The result was that holdings fre- 
quently overlapped each other, giving rise to boundary 
quarrels which lasted through several generations of 
claimants. 

In 1623, an association of merchants in Dorchester, 

England, sent out a party to form a colony near the 

„ , mouth of the Kennebec, where they had fish- 

Settlement . , ^, ' , , , , , . 

at Cape ing interests. The master, however, landed his 

""■ men at Cape Ann, in Massachusetts Bay, the 

site of the present Gloucester. Roger Conant, who, 
withdrawing from Plymouth "out of dislike of their prin- 
ciples of rigid separation," had made an independent 
settlement at Cape Ann, was apponted local manager for 



1623-1628.] MassacJnisetis Founded. 125 

the Dorchester merchants. In 1626 the merchants aban- 
doned their colony as unprofitable, most of the settlers 
returning to England ; and Conant led those remaining 
to Salem, then called Naumkeag 

John White, a conforming Puritan rector at Dorchester, 
determined to make this settlement of Dorchester men a 
White's success. To the settlers at Naumkeag he sent 
scheme. urgent advlcc to stay, while at home he set on 
foot a movement which resulted in a definite scheme of 
colonization. The arbitrary policy of Charles I. towards 
dissenters had greatly alarmed the Puritans, and White's 
plan of " raising a bulwark against the kingdom of Anti- 
christ " in America had the support of many wealthy and 
influential men. 

In 1628, six persons, heading the movement, obtained 
from the Plymouth Company a patent for a strip about 
The Massa- ^ixty miles wide along the coast, — from three 
chusetis miles south of Charles River to three miles 
""^ ' ' north of the Merrimack, and westward to the 
Pacific Ocean, which in those days was thought to be 
not much farther away than the river discovered by Hen- 
drik Hudson in 1609. This patent conflicted with grants 
already issued (1622 and 1623) to Sir Ferdinand© Gor- 
ges, his son Robert, and John Mason, of whom we shall 
hear later on. 

In September, 1628, John Endicott, gentleman, one of 
the patentees, arrived at Salem with sixty persons, to 
The first reinforce the colony already there, and super- 
charter sede Conant. The following spring, the pat- 
entees being organized as a trading company, 
the king granted them a charter styling the corporation 
the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in 
New England ; their only relationship to the Plymouth 
Company was now that of purchasers of a tract of the 
Matter's land. 



126 New Engla7id Colonies. [Ch. VI. 

Under this trading charter the whole body of freemen, 
or members of the company, was to elect annually a 
Form of govemor, a deputy-governor, and eighteen as- 
government. gistants, who were to meet monthly to perform 
such public duties as might be imposed upon them by the 
quarterly meeting of the company, or " Quarter Court." 
There was also to be an annual meeting, known as ''Gen- 
eral Court," or " Court of Elections." Laws were to be 
adopted by the general assembly of " freemen," — that is, 
of stockholders, — not contrary to the established laws 
of England. Endicott was continued as governor of the 
colony, which was at once recruited by three hundred 
and eighty men and women of the better grade of coloniz- 
ing material. 

Although the company was chartered as a trading cor- 
poration, its principal object was not gain, but to found a 
Religious rcligious Commonwealth. It was composed of 
aspirations. ^1^^ of rare ability and tact, as well as of con- 
summate courage. Among them were members of parlia- 
ment, diplomats, state officials, and some of the brightest 
and most hberal-minded clergymen in England. The 
church which they set up in Salem was not at first 
avowedly Separatist, like that of Plymouth ; it was sim- 
ply a purified English church, with a system of faith 
and discipline such as they had long insisted upon in 
the ranks of the mother-church. But under the circum- 
stances this purified church was as independent in its 
character as the professedly Separatist congregations of 
Plymouth ; and it was not long, as one step led to another, 
and persecution hurried them on, before the Massachu- 
setts Puritans were, hke their brethren in England, full- 
fledged Independents. 

Soon there was taken the most important step of all. 
The Massachusetts company, in the desire for still greater 
independence, removed its seat of government to the 



1630.] The Puritan Hegira. 127 

colony, thus boldly transforming itself, without legal sanc- 
tion, from an English trading company into an American 
The com- colonial government. In April, 1630, eleven 
pany moves vessels Went out to Massachusetts Bay, with 

to America. , r t- i- i r i 

a large company of English reformers ; and 
during the year there crossed over to America not less 
than a thousand English men and women who had 
Character found the arbitrary rule of Charles quite un- 
ofthe bearable. John Winthrop, a wealthy Suffolk 

oun ers. gentleman forty-two years of age, and one of 
the strongest and most lovable characters in American 
history, was the first governor under the new arrange- 
ment. Thomas Dudley, the deputy, was a stern and un- 
compromising Puritan, cold and narrow-minded. Francis 
Higginson, the first teacher, who had come over with 
Endicott, but died in 1630, was a Cambridge alumnus 
who had lost his church in Leicestershire because of 
nonconformity. Skelton, the pastor, was also a Cam- 
bridge man. 



52. Government of Massachusetts (1630-1634). 

There were now too many people assembled at the 
port of Salem for the supply of food, and sickness and 
Salem hunger prevailed to such an alarming degree 

divides, ^i-,^^ many died in consequence. It became 
necessary to divide, and independent congregations were 
established, on the Salem model, at Charlestown, Cam- 
bridge, Watertown, Roxbury, and later at Boston, which 
soon became the capital of the colony (September, 1630). 
Morton, who had returned to Merrymount, was again 
driven from the country ; Sir Christopher Gardiner, a 
disturbing element among the settlers, was obliged to 
withdraw to the Piscataqua: the Puritans now held Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, and brooked no rival claimants. In 



128 New England Colonies. [Ch. vi. 

establishing this commonwealth in America, the Puritan 
founders were determined to have things their own way. 

It was early decided by the General Court (1631) that 
none but church members should be admitted as free- 
^^ ^ men. Four times a year the freemen were to 

The the- , i . » , , 

ocracyestab- meet in quarter court, and with them the 
Wished. governor, his deputy, and the assistants. But, 

as in Plymouth, it was found after a time that the towns 
and the freemen had so multiplied that this primary 
assemblage became inconvenient. In 1630 the assis- 
tants were given the power to elect the governor and 
deputy governor, and also to make laws. Then it came 
about that in certain cases the control of the colony 
was in the hands of only five of the assistants, which 
made the government almost oligarchical. The cap- 
sheaf was applied when (1631) it was ordered that the 
assistants were to hold office so long as the freemen did 
not remove them. 

That same year, however, came a vigorous protest 
against this autocratic rule. The Watertown freemen 
The Water- declined to pay a tax of ^60, levied by the 
town protest, assistants for fortifications built at Cambridge. 
It was argued that a people who submitted to taxation 
without representation were in danger of " bringing them- 
selves and posterity into bondage." The next General 
Court accepted this plea as valid, and a House of Repre- 
sentatives was inaugurated on the plan of the English 
Commons, each town sending two deputies, and the gov- 
ernor and assistants sitting as members. 

For a time the freemen resumed the right of election 
of governor and deputy-governor, but soon handed this 
The repre- duty over to the representatives. Voting by 
Jystem«tab- Fallot was introduced in 1634, and the free- 
lished. men, who had become annoyed at threats from 

England of interference with their charter, asserted their 



1631-1638.] Govermneizt of Massachusetts. 129 

independence of the official class by rebuking the assist- 
ants, turning Winthrop out of office, electing Dudley as 
governor, making new rules for the election of deputies, 
providing for an oath of allegiance to the colony, and 
placing their representative system on an enduring foun- 
dation. Ten years later (1644), as the result of a quarrel 
between the assistants and the deputies, growing out of 
a petty civil suit over a lost pig, the colonial parliament 
became bicameral, the assistants forming one house, and 
the deputies the other. 

There had been a healthy renewal of immigration to 
Massachusetts in 1633 because of increased harshness 
Aristocratic ^^^ards Puritans in England, and a number of 
propositions Strong men, — such as Sir Henry Vane and 
rejecte . Hugh Peter, — destined to play no inconsider- 
able part in the history of America and England, were 
among the new arrivals. There were other Puritans 
higher in the social scale who would have liked to come, 
— such as Lord Say and Sele, and Lord Brook; but their 
proposition (1636) that an hereditary order of nobility 
be estabHshed in the province, did not meet with popu- 
lar favor ; a desire to be free from such distinctions was 
one of the causes which had impelled thousands to flee 
to America. A little later (1638) the freemen put down 
another attempt at aristocratic rule, — a movement 'look- 
ing to the establishment of a permanent council, whose 
members were to hold for life or until removed for cause. 

53. Internal Dissensions in Massachusetts (1634-1637). 

In 1634 the colony, now firmly planted with free Eng- 
lish instiiutions in full force, contained about four thou- 
Condition of ^^"^^ inhabitants, resident in sixteen towns, 
the colony The old log-houses of the first settlers were 
' ^*^' gradually giving way to commodious frame 

structures with gambrel roofs and generous gables. The 
o 



1 30 New England Colonies, [Ch. VI. 

fields were being fenced, roads laid out between the 
towns, and watercourses bridged ; and the farms were 
beginning to take on an air of prosperity. Goats, cattle, 
and swine abounded. Adventurous trading skippers, 
often in home-made boats, had cautiously worked their 
way through Long Island Sound as far as the Dutch set- 
tlements at New York, and up the coast to the Piscataqua, 
doing a small business by barter. Salt fish, furs, and 
lumber were exported to England, the vessels bringing 
back manufactured articles ; for as yet the industries of 
New England were few and crude. 

The Massachusetts colonists were for the most part 
middle-class Englishmen, and education was general 
among them. Many were graduates of Cam- 
College bridge, and the clergymen had, as conscientious 
oun e . Reformers seeing no hope of improvement in 
the English Church, abandoned comfortable livings at 
home to take charge of rude Independent meeting-houses 
in America. In 1636, an appropriation of ;i^4oo — a very 
large sum, considering the means of the province — was 
made by the General Court to found a college at Cam- 
bridge, that "the light of learning might not go out, nor 
the study of God's Word perish." Two years later 
(1638) the Rev. John Harvard, a graduate of Emmanuel 
College, who had come out in 1637, dying, left his library 
and a legacy of ^{^800 to the new institution of learnings 
"towards the erecting of a college;" and the Court 
decreed that it should bear his name. For two cen- 
turies the college continued to receive grants from the 
commonwealth. 

While the colonists were thus bravely making progress 
-, , in laying the foundations of liberal institutions 

Malcontents . "' * i i u • 

make m America, there were troubles brewmg 

trouble. y^^^ ^^ \^om^ and abroad. The unconge- 

nial spirits whom they had driven from Massachusetts 



1634-1636.] Prosperity ajid Interference. 131 

Bay made complaints in England of the ill-treatment 
they had received, and carried to Archbishop Laud and 
other members of the Privy Council reports that the 
Puritans were setting up in America a practically inde- 
pendent state and church. As an immediate consequence, 
emigrants, early in 1634, were not permitted to go to 
New England without taking the royal oath of allegiance 
and promising to conform to the Book of Common 
Prayer. 

In April a royal commission of twelve persons was 
appointed, ostensibly to take charge of all the American 
Attack on colonies, secure conformity, and even to revoke 
the charter, charters; but it was well understood that 
Massachusetts was especially aimed at. The Massachu- 
setts people were speedily ordered to lay their charter 
before the Privy Council. Their answer, however, was 
withheld, pending prayerful consideration. Meanwhile 
Dorchester, Charlestown, and Castle Island were forti- 
fied; a military commission was set to work to collect 
and store arms ; militiamen were drilled ; arrangements 
were made on Beacon Hill, in Boston, for signalling the 
inhabitants of the interior in case of an attack; the 
people were ordered on pain of death, in the event of 
war, to obey the military authorities, and no longer to 
swear allegiance to the Crown, but to the colony of 
Massachusetts. 

But the men of the colony were politic as well as 
pugnacious, and despatched Winslow to England to 
The charter make peace with the authorities. While he 
annulled. ^^g \^ London, in February, 1635, the Ply- 
mouth Company surrendered its charter to the king, 
with the condition that the latter should annul all exist- 
ing titles in New England, and partition the country in 
severalty among the members of the Plymouth council. 
In accordance with this arrangement, a writ of quo war- 



132 New England Colonies, [Ch. vr. 

ratito was issued against the Massachusetts charter, it 
was declared null and void, and Gorges was authorized to 
be viceregal governor of New England. 

Winslow was imprisoned in England for four months 
for having broken the ecclesiastical law in celebrating 
Judgment marriages in the Plymouth colony, but upon 
suspended, j^jg release did good diplomatic work and neu- 
tralized much of the opposition. Meanwhile, another and 
stricter order was sent out to the Massachusetts Company 
to surrender its charter. This again was met by silence 
and renewed military preparations. English Puritans were 
at this time attempting to leave for America in great num- 
bers, on account of acts of royal tyranny. The difficulty 
with the Scotch Church ensued, and by 1640 the Long 
Parliament was in session. In the excitement occasioned 
by the Puritan rising in the mother-land, the day of pun- 
ishment for Massachusetts was postponed. 

54. Religious Troubles in Massachusetts (1636-1638% 

The opposition at home, occasioned by differences in 
religious belief, was not, however, so easily thrust aside. 
Roger Roger Wilhams, an able and learned, but big- 

Wiihams. q\,^^ young Welshman, a graduate from Pem- 
broke College, Cambridge, came out to Plymouth in 1631. 
His tongue was too bold to suit the English ecclesiastical 
authorities, and to gain peace he had been obliged to de- 
part for the colonies. In 1633 he went to Salem, where 
he became pastor of the church. Williams was fond of 
abstruse metaphysical discussion, and he was an extremist 
in thought, speech, and action; but while hts arguments 
were phrased in such manner as often to make it difficult 
for us to understand him, the views he held were in the 
main what we style modern. He opposed the union 
of church and state, such as obtained in Massachusetts, 



1631-1636.] Roger Williams. 1 33 

where political power was exercised only by members of 
the congregation ; he was opposed to enforced attendance 
on church, and would have done away with all contributions 
for religious purposes which were not purely voluntary. 
Such doctrines were, however, held to be dangerous 
to the commonwealth ; and indeed expression of them 
would not at that time have been permitted in England 
nor in many parts of Continental Europe. But this was 
not all. Williams in a pamphlet pronounced it as his 
solemn judgment that the king was an intruder, and had no 
right to grant American lands to the colonists ; that honest 
patents could only be procured from the Indians by pur- 
chase ; and that all existing titles were therefore invalid. 
This was deemed downright treason, which he was com- 
pelled by the magistrates to recant. At Salem, Endicott, 
w'ho was one of his disciples, became so heated under his 
pastor's teachings that, in token of his hatred of the sym- 
bols of Rome, he cut the cross of St. George from the 
English ensign. The General Court, greatly alarmed lest 
these proceedings should anger the king, reprimanded 
Endicott ; and, because of his " divers new and danger- 
ous opinions," ordered Williams (January, 1636) to return 
to England, The latter escaped, and passed the winter in 
missionary service among the Indians. In the spring, 
privately aided by the lenient Winthrop, the trouble- 
some agitator passed south, with five of his followers, 
to Narragansett Bay, and there established Providence 
Plantation. 

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston from Eng- 
land in the autumn of 1634. She was a woman of bril- 
Anne ^^^"^ parts, but impetuous and indiscreet, and 

Hiitchinson by iustinct an agitator. Her religious views 
Amino- are described by Winthrop as containing *' two 
mians. dangerous errors, — first, that the person of 

the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person ; second, 



134 iV^zi^ England Colonies, [Ch. VI. 

that no sanctification can help to evidence to us our jus- 
tification." This is cloudy to a modern layman. The 
theory is styled Antinomian by its enemies, and was sub- 
stantially as follows: Any person in a "state of grace" 
or " justification " is at the same time " sanctified ; " 
since he is both justified and sanctified, the person of 
the Holy Ghost dwells in his heart, and his acts can- 
not in the nature of things partake of sin: therefore he 
need have no great concern about the outward aspect of 
his works. This doctrine was contrary to that enter- 
tained by the Puritans, who believed that a person must 
be first justified by faith, and then sanctified by works. 
They thought the Antinomian dogma open to pernicious 
interpretation, and not conducive to the welfare of society. 
Its advocacy threw Boston into a great ferment. 

Mrs. Hutchinson soon had a large following, among 
whom were Wheelwright, John Cotton, and Thomas 
Hooker, of the ministers ; while among laymen who were 
well inclined towards her doctrine was the younger Henry 
Vane, then governor of the colony, who was in later years 
to become prominent as one of the leaders in the English 
Commonwealth. In the conditions then existing in Mas- 
sachusetts Mrs. Hutchinson's teachings were considered 
dangerous to the State ; they opposed the authority of 
the ecclesiastical rulers, and this tended to breed civil 
dissension. One of her supporters, Greensmifh, was 
fined £dfO by the General Court (March, 1637) for publicly 
declaring that all the preachers except Cotton, Wheel- 
wright, and Thomas Hooker taught a covenant of works 
instead of a covenant of grace, the difference between 
which, the layman Winthrop said, " no man could tell, 
except some few who knew the bottom of the matter." 
At the same time Wheelwright was found guilty of sedi- 
tion because in a sermon he had counselled his hearers 
to fight for their liberties, but with weapons spiritual, not 



1634-1637-] An?te Hutchinson, 135 

carnal. When the Boston church supported their min- 
ister, the Court responded by voting to hold its next 
meeting at Newtown (Cambridge), where it might delibe- 
rate amid quieter surroundings than at Boston. 

Wlien the Court of Election met at Newtown (May, 
1637), Vane and his friends were, in the course of a 
tumultuous session, dropped out of the government, 
Winthrop was again chosen governor, and the uncom- 
promising heretic-hater Dudley deputy-governor. Vane 
departed for England in disgust, never to return. For 
a time it seemed as if peace had come under the politic 
Winthrop, and the Hutchinsonians gave evidences of a 
desire to compromise. In a few months, however, the 
Court re-opened the whole controversy by legislating 
against all new-comers who were tainted with heresy. 
The old warfare broke out again. The charges of sedi- 
tion against Wheelwright were renewed, he was banished, 
and fled, with a few adherents, to the Piscataqua. 

Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on trial (November, 1637) 
and commanded to leave the colony, which she did in 
.. „ , March following, and went to Rhode Island. 

Mrs. Hutch- . *=' 

inson Seventy-six of her followers were disarmed, 

^"'* ^ ■ some were disfranchised, others fined, and still 
others "desired and obtained license to remove them- 
selves and their families out of the jurisdiction." Quiet 
once more prevailed. Wheelwright recanted after a time, 
and was permitted to resume his habitation in Boston ; 
and many others of the disaffected were finally restored 
to citizenship. 

The little commonwealth had been shaken to its foun- • 
dations by a controversy which to-day- — when religion 
The poiic of ^^^ politics are separated, to the advantage of 
repression both — would be considered of small moment 
even in one of our rural villages ; but the State 
and the Church were one in the colony of Massachusetts, 



136 New Engla?td Colo7iies. [Ch. VL 

and ecclesiastical contumacy was political contumacy as 
well. Under such conditions there could safely be nei- 
ther liberty of opinion nor of speech ; the welfare of a 
government thus constituted lay in stern repression. The 
suppression and banishment of Roger Williams and Mrs. 
Hutchinson were eminently successful in restoring order 
and public security, in the train of which came increased 
immigration and greater prosperity. 

55. Indian Wars (1635-1637). 

While these things were going on in Boston and 
Newtown, warfare of another sort was in progress to the 
The Dutch south. In 1635 residents of Massachusetts 
at Hartford, made a settlement on the Connecticut river, on 
the site of Windsor, above the Dutch fort at Hartford ; 
and later in the same year another party, under John 
Winthrop the younger, built Saybrook, at the mouth of 
the stream. These Connecticut settlements formed an 
outpost in the heart of the Indian country, and trouble 
was inevitable. 

At last the attitude of the Pequods, the tribe occupying 
the lower portion of the Connecticut valley, became un- 
The Pequod bearable ; they interfered with immigrants 
war. going overland, and rendered trade by sea 

dangerous. They endeavored to enlist the sympathy of 
the Narragansetts in their forays. Could these tribes 
have formed a coalition, it seems likely that the New 
England colonists, then few and weak, must have been 
driven into the sea. Roger Williams, bearing no malice 
towards his old enemies in Massachusetts, averted this 
calamity. As the result of great exertions on his part, the 
Narragansetts were induced to disregard the overtures 
of their old enemies, the Pequods, and the Connecticut 
Indians went alone upon the war-path. They made life 



1635-1637-] Peqiiod War. 1 37 

a burden to the settlers in the little towns of Saybrook, 
Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. An appeal for aid 
went up from the colonists in the Connecticut valley to 
Massachusetts and Plymouth, and was promptly answered. 
In the little intercolonial army of some three hundred 
men, Captains John Mason of Windsor and John Under- 
bill of Massachusetts were the leading figures. 
Pequods The Pequods were surprised in their chief 
crushed. ^^^^ (May 20, 1 637), the walls of which were 
burned by the whites, while volleys of musketry were 
poured into the crowd of savages, who huddled together 
in great fear. Says Underbill, " It is reported by them- 
selves that there were about four hundred souls in this 
tort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands ; " 
others report that seven hundred Pequods fell on that 
terrible day. Of the besiegers but two were killed, 
though a quarter of the force were wounded. From this 
scene of slaughter the victorious colonists marched 
through the rest of the enemy's territory, burning wig- 
wams and granaries, taking some of the survivors prison- 
ers, to be sold into slavery, and so thoroughly scattering 
the others that the Pequod tribe never reorganized ; the 
expedition had thoroughly uprooted it. 

56. Laws and Characteristics of Massachusetts 
(1637-1643). 

For more than ten years after the planting of Massa- 
chusetts the magistrates dispensed justice according to 
their understanding of right and wrong ; there 
were no statutes, neither had the English 
common law been officially recognized, except so far as it 
was understood that Englishmen carried the law of their 
land with them in emigrating to America. " In the year 
1634," says Hutchinson, " the plantation was greatly 
increased, settlements were extended more than thirty 



138 New England Colonies. [Ch. VL 

miles from the capital town, and it was thought high time 
to have known established laws, that the inhabitants 
might no longer be subject to the varying uncertain judg- 
ments which otherwise would be made concerning their 
actions. The ministers and some of the principal laymen 
were consulted with about a body of laws suited to the 
circumstances of the colony, civil and religious. Com- 
mittees of magistrates and elders were appointed " from 
year to year by the General Court, but it was not until 
1 641 that a body of statutes was finally adopted. 

The influence of the clergy is well illustrated in the 
fact that the two codes finally submitted were the work 
The Body of of ministers, — John Cotton of Boston, and 
Liberties. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich. The latter's 
plan, in which he received the aid of Winthrop and 
others of the elders, was adopted in 1641, under the title 
of The Body of Liberties. In England, Ward had at 
one time been a barrister, and was well read in the 
common law, on which his code was mainly based, al- 
though it also contained many features of the law of 
Moses. Equal justice was vouchsafed, to all, old or 
young, freeman or foreigner, master or servant, man or 
woman ; persons and property were to be inviolable 
except by law ; brutes were to be humanely treated ; no 
one was to be tried twice for the same offence ; barbar- 
ous or cruel punishments were forbidden ; public records 
were to be open for inspection ; church regulations were 
to be enforced by civil courts, and church officers and 
members were amenable to civil law ; the Scriptures were 
to overrule any custom or prescription ; the general 
rules of judicial proceedings were defined, as were also 
the privileges and duties of freemen, and the liberties 
and prerogatives of the churches; public money was 
to be spent only with the consent of the taxpayers. 
** There shall be no bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitio 



1641.] Body of Liberties. 139 

amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken In just 
warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves 
or are sold to us ; " but all such were to be allowed " all 
the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god 
established in Israeli." Notwithstanding this enlightened 
provision, persons continued to be born and to live and 
die as slaves within the boundaries of the common- 
wealth down to 1780. Servants fleeing from the cruelty 
of their masters were to be protected, and there was to 
be appeal from parental tyranny. " Everie marryed 
woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes 
by her husband, unlesse it be in his owne defence upon 
her assalt." The capital offences, selected from the 
Scriptures, were twelve in number ; among them were : 
" (2) If any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath or 
consulteth with a familiar spirit), they shall be put to 
death ;" and " (12) If any man shall conspire and at- 
tempt any invasion, insurrection, or publique rebellion 
against our commonwealth, ... or shall treacherously 
and perfediouslie attempt the alteration and subversion 
of our frame of politic or Government fundamentallie, he 
shall be put to death." The essence of this Body of 
Liberties was afterwards incorporated into the formal 
laws of the colony. It was the foundation of the Mas- 
sachusetts code. 

Massachusetts was the first large colony in New Eng- 
land. Its people were educated, and as a rule of a higher 
Character- social grade than those of Plymouth. Under 
ivii?sachu- ^ charter which contained many very liberal 
setts. provisions, a highly organized government was 

developed, which served as a model to the other colonies, 
and had a wide influence in the building of a nation 
founded on the principles of self-government. Plymouth 
had, after sixteen years, separated into towns ; but when 
organized town and church governments moved bodily 



140 New England Colonies. [Ch. vi 

from Massachusetts to found Connecticut, Massachusetts 
became the first mother of colonies. Massachusetts was 
bolder, more aggressive, and more tenacious of her liber- 
ties than any other of the American colonies ; her people 
took firm, sometimes obstinate, stand for their rights 
as Englishmen, and were often alone in their early con- 
tentions for principles upon which in after years the 
Revolution was based. In their treatment of the In- 
dians they were inclined to be more imperious than their 
neighbors. 

57. Connecticut founded (1633-1639). 

In 1633 Plymouth built a fur-trading house on Ihe site 
of Windsor, on the Connecticut River. A party of 
PI mouth Dutch traders from New York was already 
traders at planted at Hartford, in " a rude earthwork 
w'ith two guns," and strenuously objected to 
this intrusion ; but the Plymouth men found trade with 
the Indians profitable, and stood their ground. 

The same year the overland route to the Connecticut 
was explored by the Massachusetts trader, John Oldham, 
The Massa- ^^^ ^^^ afterwards slain by the Pequods at 
chusetts Block Island. The favorable reports which 
^^''^^ Oldham carried back induced a number of 

people in Newtown (Cambridge), Dorchester, and Water- 
town, in the Massachusetts colony, to remove to the 
Connecticut and set up an independent State. " Hereing 
of ye fame of Conightecute river, they had a hankering 
mind after it." Ostensibly they sought better pasturage 
for their cattle, to prevent the Dutch from gaining a 
permanent hold on the country, and to plant an outpost 
in the Pequod country ; but there also appear to have 
been some differences of opinion between these people 
and the Massachusetts authorities, growing out of the 
taxation of Watertown in 1631 ; and no doubt their 



J633-1637] Connecticut Fotmded. 141 

ministers and elders — among whom were such strong 
men as Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and Roger Lud- 
low — were desirous of greater recognition than they 
obtained at home. These differences were not so grave 
but that Massachusetts, after a spasm of opposition, 
formally permitted the migration, gave to the outgoing 
colonists a commission, and lent to them a cannon and 
some ammunition. 

During the summer of 1635 ^ Dorchester party planted 
a settlement at Windsor around the walls of the Plymouth 
Plymouth post. Plymouth did not approve of this cav- 
overawed. ^jj'gj. treatment of her prior rights by the 
Massachusetts pioneers, but was obliged to submit with 
what grace she might, as she had in many controversies 
with her domineering neighbor to the north. 

That same autumn (1635) John Winthrop, Jr., ap- 
peared at the mouth of the Connecticut with a commis- 
Winthrop at ^'^^ ^^ govemor, issued by Lord Brook, Lord 
Saybrook. Say and Sele, and their partners, to whom in 
1631 Lord Warwick, as president of the council for New 
England, had granted all the country between the Nar- 
ragansett River and the Pacific Ocean. Winthrop had 
just thrown up a breastwork when a Dutch vessel ap- 
peared on its way to Hartford with supplies for the 
traders, and was ordered back ; thus were the New 
Amsterdam people cut off from a profitable commerce 
on the Connecticut, and from territorial expansion east, 
ward, although their Hartford colony lived for many 
years. 

The migration from Massachusetts to the Connecticut 
continued vigorously during 1636, and by the spring of 
Condition 1637 the colony had a population of eight 
J'^Jj^e colony hundred souls, grouped in the three towns o£ 
(« 36 I 37). 'vVindsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, — Wia^ 
throp's establishment at Saybrook being but a military 



142 New England Colonies, [Ch. VL 

station, which had no connection with the Massachusetts 
settlements up the river until 1644. The Pequod war, 
in 1637, stirred Connecticut to its centre. A force of 
about one hundred and fifteen Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut men, under the command of Capt. John Mason 
of Windsor, was handled with much skill, and soon nearly 
annihilated the Pequod tribe. The Indians crushed, im- 
migration was renewed, and prosperity became general 
throughout the valley. 

58. The Connecticut Government (1639-1643). 

During the first year the Connecticut towns were still 
claimed by the parent colony, and were controlled by a 
Government Commission from Massachusetts. At the end 
established, of that time (1637) there was held a General 
Court, in which each town was represented by two magis- 
trates, this body adopting such local regulations as were 
of immediate necessity. 

In January, 1639, the three towns adopted a consti- 
tution in which Massachusetts acquiesced, thus practi- 
_ cally abandoning her claims of sovereignty 
necticut over them. This Connecticut constitution was 
Constitution, undoubtedly, as Fiske says, "the first written 
constitution known to history that created a government," 
— the ''Mayflower" compact being rather an agreement 
to accept a constitution, while Magna Charta did not 
create a government. Bryce characterizes the Connecti- 
cut document as "the oldest truly political constitution in 
America." It is noticeable for the fact that it made no 
reference to the king or to any charter or patent; it was 
simply an agreement between colonists in neighboring 
towns, independent of any but royal authority, as to the 
manner of their local and general self-government. The 
governor and six magistrates (another name for assistants) 
were to be elected by a majority of the whole body of free 



i639] Connecticut Constitution. 1 43 

men ; but later, with the spread of the colony, voting by 
proxies was allowed. The governor alone need be a church 
member, and he was not to serve for two years in succes- 
sion ; but this restriction on re-election was abolished in 
favor of the younger Winthrop in 1660. Each town might 
admit freemen by popular vote ; and it is noticeable that 
despite the fact that the original settlers of Connecticut 
came as organized congregations, with their ministers 
and elders, it was ordained there should be no religious 
restriction on suffrage, which was thus made almost 
unrestricted ; the towns were to be represented in the 
General Court by two deputies each ; the practical admin- 
istration was in the hands of the governor and his assist- 
ants, who were also members of the General Court. In 
time the system became bicameral, the deputies forming 
the lower, and the council the upper house ; the towns 
were allowed all powers not expressly granted to the 
commonwealth, the affairs of each being executed by a 
board of " chief inhabitants," acting as magistrates. The 
government of Connecticut was on the whole somewhat 
more liberal and democratic than that of Massachusetts, 
and was the model upon which many American States 
were afterwards built. 

More than to any other man, the credit for this epoch- 
making constitution belongs to the Rev. Thomas Hooker, 
Hooker's of Hartford, the leading spirit of the colony, 
influence. jjg argued that " the foundation of authority 
is laid in the free consent of the people;" that "the 
choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by 
God's own allowance ; " and that " they who have power 
to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to 
set the bounds and limitations of the power and place 
unto which they call them." These are truisms to- 
day, but in 1638 thev were the utterances of a political 
prophet. 



144 New England Colonies, [Ch. vi. 

Under her liberal constitutional government, based upon 
the voice of the people, Connecticut was from the first a 
Character- Practically independent republic. The public 
istics of officers were plain, honest men, who acceptably 
Connecticut, administered the affairs of the colony with 
small cost. The colonists were shrewd in political man- 
agement, frugal in their expenditures, hard-working, and 
ingenious. Education flourished, a severe morality ob- 
tained, and religious persecution was unknown. Con- 
necticut was noted among the colonies for its prosperity, 
independence, and enlightenment. 

59. New Haven founded (1637-1644). 

Theophilus Eaton was a London merchant "of fair 
estate, and of great esteem for religion and wisdom in 
Origin of the outward affairs." He was at one time an 
colony. ambassador to the Danish court, and had been 

one of the original assistants of the Massachusetts Com- 
pany, although not active in its affairs. John Davenport 
had been an ordained minister in London ; he turned 
Puritan, and on his resignation in 1633 went to Holland. 
These two men formed a congregation, composed for the 
most part of middle-class Londoners, who resolved to 
migrate to America, there to set up a State founded on 
scriptural models. The Plymouth and Massachusetts 
men had started out with this same idea; but as the result 
of circumstances, had made compromises which Eaton 
and Davenport could not countenance. 

In July, 1637, the two leaders arrived in Boston with 
a small company of their disciples, among whom were 
^ , several men of wealth and good social position, 

Theplanta- , , j 1 • . j • i- • 

tion cove- but extremely narrow and bigoted m religious 
°*°'- faith. They have been styled the Brahmins 

of New England Puritanism. They did not deem it 
practicable to settle in Massachusetts, and the following 



1637-1643] New Haven Founded, 145 

spring (March, 1638) sailed to Long Island Sound and 
established an independent settlement on the site of 
New Haven, thirty miles west of the Connecticut river. 
For a year their only bond of union was a " plantation 
covenant" to obey the Scriptures in all things. 

In October, 1639, there was adopted a constitution, in 
the making of which Davenport had the chief hand. 
The Con- The govemor and four magistrates were to be 
stitution. elected by the freemen, who were, as in Mas- 
sachusetts, church members ; trial by jury was rejected, 
because it lacked scriptural authority ; and it was for- 
mally declared " that the Word of God shall be the only 
rule attended unto in ordering the affairs of government." 
Eaton was chosen governor, and held the office by annual 
election until his death, twenty years later. 

The neighborhood of New Haven was soon settled by 
other immigrants, most of whom were also strict con- 
Neighbor- structionists of the Scriptures, while a few 
ing towns, others were as liberal in their ideas as the 
people of the Connecticut valley. Guilford was estab- 
lished (1639) seventeen miles to the north, and Milford 
(1639) eleven miles westward ; Stamford (1640), well on 
towards New York, followed, v/hile Southold was boldly 
planted (1640) on Long Island, opposite Guilford, in 
territory claimed by the Dutch. As each town was as 
well a church, these were for some years little inde- 
pendent communities, founded on the New Haven 
model. In 1643, however, they formed a union with New 
Haven, and a system of representadon was introduced. 
Each town sent up deputies to the General Court, in 
which also sat the governor, deputy-governor, and assist- 
ants, elected by the whole body of freemen ; yet a major- 
ity of either the deputies or the magistrates might veto 
a measure. Local magistrates — seven to each town, 
known as " pillars of the church " — tried petty cases, 
10 



146 New England Colonies. [Ch. VL 

but important suits were passed upon by the assistants. 
The " seven pillars " were the autocrats of their several 
towns, and colonial affairs were also practically in the 
hands of the select few who controlled the church. 

At the meeting of the General Court in April, 1644, the 
magistrates in the confederation were ordered to observe 
Peters's "the judicial laws of God as they were de- 
Faise Blu« Hvered by Moses." This injunction afterwards 
gave rise to an absurd report, circulated in 1781 
by Rev. Samuel Peters, a Tory refugee, that the New 
Haven statutes were of peculiar quaintness and severity. 
For nearly one hundred years Peters's fable of the New 
Haven Blue Laws was accepted as historic truth. 

At first. New Haven failed to prosper ; but after a few 
years, with the increase of trade, better times prevailed, 
_ and by the close of the century the town was 
istics of noted for the wealth of its inhabitants and their 

ew aven. ^^^ houses. Education was greatly encour- 
aged, and there were considerable shipping interests; 
but the ecclesiastical system was peculiar, and suffrage 
greatly restricted. There were, in consequence, frequent 
outbursts of dissatisfaction among the people. The col- 
ony thus had conspicuous elements of weakness, and was 
finally absorbed by Connecticut. 

60. Rhode Island founded (1636-1654). 

In 1636, with five of his disciples, Roger Williams, 
Roger driven from Massachusetts as a reformer of a 

Williams. dangerous type, established the town of Prov- 
idence, at the head of Narragansett Bay. 

The following year (1637) a party of Anne Hutch- 
Anne inson's followers -— also expelled from Mas- 
liutchinson. sachusetts because of heretical opinions — 
settled on the island of Aquedneck (afterwards Rhode 
Island), eighteen miles to the south. Mrs. Hutchinson 



^636-1638.] Rhode Island Fomided. 147 

joined them in 1638, and the town was eventually called 
Portsmouth. 

Both communities at once attracted from Massachu- 
setts people who had either been expelled from that 
Newport colony or were not in entire harmony with it, 
established, ^^^d by the close of 1638 Providence contained 
sixty persons, and Portsmouth nearly as many. The 
next year fifty-nine of the Portsmouth people, headed by 
the chief magistrate, Coddington, dissenting from some 
of Mrs. Hutchinson's " new heresies," withdrew to the 
southern end of the island and settled Newport ; but the 
two towns reunited in 1640, under the name of Rhode 
Island, with Coddington as governor. 

Each of these colonies, Providence and Rhode Island, 
was at first an independent body politic. It is interest- 
The Provi- ^"^ ^° ^^^^ l\^^\r Original compacts. The 
dence agree- Providence agreement (1636), signed by Roger 
'"^°'- Williams and twelve of his sympathizers, was 

as follows : "We whose names are hereunder, desirous 
to inhabit in the Town of Providence, do promise to sub- 
ject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such 
orders or agreements as shall be made for the public 
good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent 
of the present inhabitants, masters of famihes, incorpo- 
rated together into a town fellowship, and such others 
whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things.". 
Five freemen, called arbitrators, managed public aifairs, 
and for some years there appear to have been no fixed 
rules for their guidance. 

At Portsmouth the people united in the following dec- 
laration : " We do here solemnly, in the presence of 
The Ports- J^^ovah, incorporate ourselves into a body 
mouth decia- politic, and as He shall help will submit our 
persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to all 



148 New England Colojiies. [Ch. vi. 

those perfect and most absolute laws of His, given us 
in His holy words of truth, to be guided and judged 
thereby." The freemen conducted public affairs in town 
meeting, with a secretary, a clerk, and a chief magistrate. 
Newport was similarly organized ; but when Newport 
and Portsmouth reunited, a more complex government 
was instituted. A General Court was then established, 
in which sat the governor, the deputy-governor, and four 
assistants, — one town choosing the governor and two 
of the assistants, and the other the deputy-governor and 
iht remaining assistants ; the freemen composed the body 
of the court, and settled even the most trivial cases. In 
"641 it was declared that " it is in the power of the 
Dody of the freemen orderly assembled, or the part of 
them, to make and constitute just laws by which they 
shall be regulated, and to depute from among them.selves 
such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed be- 
tween man and man." At the same session an order 
was adopted "that none be accounted a delinquent for 
doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the 
government or laws established." 

By the other colonies Providence and Rhode Island 
were deemed hot-beds of anarchy. Persons holding 
An asylum ^^^ manner of Protestant theological notions 
for sectaries, flocked thither in considerable numbers, and 
. it is true that for many years there were hot contentions 
between them, often to the disturbance of public order. 
Despite these years of bickerings, Providence and Rhode 
Island prospered. 

Through the exertions of Roger Williams, Providence, 
Portsmouth, and Newport, with a new town called War- 
Establish- wick, were united under one charter (1644), 
Providence ^^ *^^ colony of Providence Plantations. This 
Plantations, liberal document, issued by the Parliamentary 
Committee on the Colonies, gave to the inhabitants along 



td4i-i654j loleration in Rhode Island. 149 

Narragansett Bay authority to rule themselves " by such 
form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of 
all or the greatest part of them shall be found most 
serviceable to their estate and condition." Larger power 
could not have been wished for. By a curious provision, 
adopted in 1647, a law had to be proposed at the General 
Court ; it was then sent round to the towns for the freemen 
to pass upon it, thus giving the voters a voice in the con- 
duct of affairs, without the necessity of attending court. 
A majority of freemen in any one town could defeat the 
measure. A code of laws resembling the common laws 
of England, and with few references to biblical prece- 
dents, passed safely through the ordeal in 1647; one 
important section provided that "all men may walk as 
their conscience persuades them." 

The following year Coddington, as the head of a 
faction, obtained a separate charter for Newport and 
The Cod- Portsmouth, — much to the disgust of many of 
dington £ac- the inhabitants of those as well as of the other 
towns. A bitter feud lasted until 1654, when 
Williams once more appeared as peacemaker and se- 
cured the reunion of all the towns under the general 
charter of 1644, with himself as president. The old 
law code was restored. 

Rhode Island was founded by a religious outcast, and 
always remained as an asylum for those sectaries who 
Character- could find no home elsewhere. The purpose 
Rhode^s- ^^^ noble, and Williams persisted in his po- 
land. licy, despite the fact that life was often made 

uncomfortable for him by his ill-assorted fellow-colo- 
nists, who were continually bickering with each other. 
Throughout the seventeenth century Rhode Island was 
a hot-bed of disorder. Fanaticism not only expressed 
itself in religion, but in politics and society ; and no 
scheme was so wild as to find no adherents in this con- 



1 50 New England Colonies. [Ch. vl 

fused medley. The condition of the colony served as a 
warning to its neighbors, seeming to confirm the wisdom 
of their theocratic methods. 

61. Maine founded (1622-1658). 

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth In Eng- 
land, became interested in New England, we have seen, 
Sir Ferdi- ^^ early as 1605. Ten years later he assisted 
nando Gorges. John Smith In organizing an unsuccessful 
voyage to the northern coast; in 1620 we find him a 
member of the council of the Plymouth Company ; in 
1622 he and John Mason (not the hero of the Pequod 
war), both of them Churchmen and strong friends of the 
king, obtained a grant of the country lying between the 
Merrimack and Kennebec Rivers ; and it was Gorges 
who sent out Maverick to settle on Noddle's Island, 
and Blackstone to hold the Boston peninsula. Later 
(1629), Mason obtained an individual grant from the 
Plymouth Council of the territory between the Merri- 
mack and the Piscataqua (New Hampshire), and Gorges 
that from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec (Maine) ; these 
grants were similar in character to the charter of the 
Massachusetts Bay Company. When the Plymouth 
Company threw up its charter in 1634, and New Eng- 
land was parcelled out (1635) among the members of 
the council, Gorges and Mason secured a confirmation 
of their former personal grants. Mason died a few 
months later, leaving the settlements in his tract to be 
annexed to Massachusetts in 1641. 

In April, 1639, Gorges obtained a provincial charter 
from the king, conferring upon him the title of Lord 
Becomes Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine, 
prieJofoT ^^^ domain to extend, as before, from the 
Maine. Kennebec to the Piscataqua, and backward 

one hundred and twenty miles from the coast. He re- 



1 62 2- 1 658.] Maine Founded. 15 1 

ceived almost absolute authority over the people of his 
province, who were then but three hundred in number. 
Saco, established by him about the year 1623, was the 
principal settlement, and contained one half of the popu- 
lation ; while a half-dozen smaller hamlets, chiefly of 
his creation, were scattered along the neighboring shore, 
inhabited by fishermen, hunters, and traders. The greater 
part of these people were adherents of the king and the 
Established Church. Notwithstanding Gorges's long- 
sustained effort to attract men of wealth to his planta- 
tions, the province was not as flourishing as its neighbors 
to the south. 

Gorges amused his old age by drafting a cumbrous 
Constitution for his people. He was to make laws in 
„. _ conjunction with the freemen; the laws of 

brouscon- England were to prevail in cases not covered 
stitution. ^y ^j^g statutes ; the Church of England was 
to be the State religion ; all Englishmen were to be al- 
lowed fishing privileges ; the proprietor was to establish 
manorial courts ; and he was also empowered, of his own 
motion, to levy taxes, raise troops, and declare war. In 
examining the ofiicial machinery which Gorges sought to 
erect in Maine, we are reminded of Locke's constitution 
for the Caroiinas ; the proprietor was to be represented 
by a deputy-governor, under whom was to be a long line 
of officers with high-sounding titles, these to form the 
council ; with them were to meet the deputies selected 
by the freeholders. The provinces were to be cut up 
into bailiwicks or counties, hundreds, parishes, and tith- 
ings ; justice in each bailiwick was to be administered by 
a lieutenant and eight magistrates, the nominees of the 
proprietor or his deputy, and under each was a staff of 
minor functionaries. There were almost enough officers 
provided for in Gorges's plan to give every one of his 
subjects a public position. 



152 New Englaiid Colonies. [Ck. Vl. 

The proprietor himself never visited America; he was 
representi'd by his son Thomas as deputy- governor. 
The colony It was impossible for the latter, however, to 
neglected. carry all of his father's plans into effect, and 
gradually the province sank into disorder and neglect. 
Its towns were finally absorbed by Massachusetts (1652- 
1658). 

The settlers brought out to people Maine were the 
servants of individuals or companies having a tract of land 
Character- ^° ^^ occupied and Cultivated, fisheries to con- 
istics of duct, and fur-trade to prosecute. They did 
not come to found a church or build a state, 
and such institutions as they developed were the imme- 
diate outcome of their necessities. They had little 
sympathy or communication with their neighbors of 
Massachusetts and Plymouth. 



62. New Hampshire founded (1620-1685). 

We have seen that John Mason was given a grant in 
1629 of the country between the Merrimack and the 
. Piscataqua. In his scheme for colonizing the 

first settle- tract, Gorges was associated with him. Put 
""ents. David Thomson and three Plymouth fur- 

traders had already gained a footing at Rye in 1622, 
under a grant from the Plymouth Council. Dover had 
been founded before 1628 by the brothers Hilton, Puritan 
fish-dealers in London ; and some of Mrs. Hutchinson's 
adherents, exiles from Massachusetts, founded Exeter 
and Hampton. In 1630 Neal, as colonizing agent of 
Mason and Gorges, settled at Portsmouth, on the Pis- 
cataqua, with a large party of farmers and fishermen, all 
of them Church of England men ; and it is probable that 
this colony absorbed the neighboring settlement at Rye. 
By the time the proprietors dissolved partnership in 1635 



1 620-1 685.] New Hampshire Founded. 153 

(page 150), considerable property had been accumulated 
by them here, as in the inventory of their possessions at 
Portsmouth we find twenty-two cannons, two hundred 
and fifty small-arms, forty-eight fishing-boats, forty horses, 
fifty-four goats, nearly two hundred sheep, and over a hun- 
dred cattle. This argues a large establishment. Upon the 
death of Mason, later in the year, the Piscataqua colony 
was left to its own guidance. All of the New Hampshire 
towns were from the first independent communities, 
governed much after the fashion of the other English 
towns to the south of them. 

The beginnings of New Hampshire were the results of 
commercial enterprise in England and theological dissen- 
sions in Massachusetts. The inhabitants of 
isticsofNew the several towns had little in common, and 
Hampshire, j^^j^^ different political and religious views. 
Planted under various auspices, when they grew to im- 
portance they were the subject of long struggles for 
jurisdiction. It would be tiresome to trace the history of 
these disputes ; suffice it to say that after many changes the 
settlements on or near the Piscataqua were (1641-1643) 
incorporated with Massachusetts, which ruled them with 
marked discretion, and refrained from meddling with their 
religious views. In 1679, ^^ the result of disputes grow- 
ing out of the revival of the Mason claim in England, 
New Hampshire was turned into a royal province, but in 
1685 was reunited to Massachusetts. As to the charac- 
ter of the people of New Hampshire, what has been said 
in regard to those of Maine may in a great measure also 
be applied to them. 



154 Developments of New England. [Ch.vii 

CHAPTER VII. 
NEW ENGLAND FROM 1643 TO 1700. 



63. References. 

Bibliographies. — Same as §47, above; Avery, II,, III.; 
Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 124-128. 

Historical Maps. — Same as § 47, above. 

General Accounts. — Doyle, Colonies, II. chs. viii., ix,, III. 
chs. i.-v.; Lodge, Colonies, 351-362, 375-380, 387-392, 398-400; 
Osgood, Colonies; Avery, II. chs. xiii.-xviii., III. chs. vii., viii., x.- 
xii- xix.-xxi.; G. Bancroft, I. 289-407, 574-613; Channing, 
United States, I. chs. xv., xviii,, xix.; Hildreth, I. chs. x., xii., xiv.; 
Palfrey, New England, I. 269-408, III. 1-386; Fiske, Begimiings 
of New England; Hallowell, Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts; 
R. Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, chs. ii., iii.; A. MacLear, 
Early New England Towns ; Winsor, Narrative and Critical, as 
in § 47- 

Special Histories. — Consult the numerous local histories, 
some of them of much importance; Winsor's Boston, and Sheldon's 
Deerfield are examples. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Sewall, Diary; Mather, Mag- 
nolia; Bishop, New England Judged; Hubbard, Trouble with 
the Indians. — Reprints in pubhcations of colonial and town 
record commissions, historical and antiquarian societies, Prince 
Society, Gorges Society, etc.; Andros, Tracts; American History 
Leaflets, Nos. 7, 25, 29; Old South Leaflets; American History 
told by Contemporaries, I. ch. xx., II. 

64. New England Confederation formed (1637-1643). 

In the preceding chapter has been sketched the origin 
and planting of the Nevi^ England colonies. Most of 
those colonies maintained a separate existence 
politics and had a history of their own during the 

excluded. ^^^^ q£ ^^^ seventeenth century. But the limits 
of this work do not permit a sketch of the local and 
internal history of each colony. In this chapter will 
therefore be considered only those events of common 
interest and having a significance in the development of 
all the colonies. 



J 537- 1 64 2.] Confederation Formed. 155 

First in time and first in its consequences is the 

federation of the New England colonies, for which in 

.. , August, 1637, the men of Connecticut made 

Connecticut o ' -^'^ 

makes over- overtures to the Massachusetts General Court. 
coioniaiVede- Connecticut, as an outpost of English civiliza- 
ration(i637) ^Jqj^ j^ tj-jg heart of the Indian country and 
"over against the Dutch," had especial need of support 
from the older colonies to the east. The tribesmen were 
uneasy and the menaces of the Dutch at New Amster- 
dam were especially alarming. Twice had the doughty 
Hollanders endeavored to drive English settlers from 
the Connecticut valley and recover their lost fur-trade 
there; both attempts had been failures, but it seemed 
likely that in time the Dutch might summon sufficient 
strength to make it more difficult to withstand them. 
Again, the French, who had settled at Quebec in 1608, 
were beginning to push the confines of New France 
southward ; and there had been trouble with them at 
various times for several years, the outgrowth of bound- 
ary disputes and race hatred. The Connecticut and Hud- 
son rivers were highways quite familiar to the French 
Canadians and their Indian allies, and the Connecticut 
colonists were apprehensive of partisan raids overland 
from the north, which they could not hope to repel 
single-handed. 

The proposition for union was renewed in 1639, ^^^ 
'igain in September, 1642. At first Massachusetts was in- 
' viassachu- different ; but finally " the ill news we had out of 
'avorabie^' England Concerning the breach between the 
' 1642). king and Parliament " appears to have caused 

'ler statesmen to look favorably on the project. Affairs 
Vere at such a pass in the mother-country that it behooved 
'Englishmen in America to be prepared to act on the 
defensive in the event of the war-cloud drifting in their 
'iirection. Should the king win, there was reason to 



156 Developinent of New England. [Ch. vii, 

believe that he would speedily turn his attention towards 
the correction of New England, which had long been to 
dissenting Englishmen in the mother-land an object- 
lesson in political independence and a ready refuge in 
time of danger. 

In May, 1643, twelve articles were agreed upon at 
Boston between the representatives of Massachusetts 
Formation ^^y' Ply^^outh, Connccticut, and New Haven, 
of the New Winthrop tells us that the representatives 

England ,, • , u ^. i. j 

Confedera- coming to consultation encountered some 
*'°"* difficulties, but being all desirous of union 

and studious of peace, they readily yielded each to other 
in such things as tended to common utility." Com- 
promises were the foundation of this as well as of later 
American constitutions. 

The four colonies were bound together by a formal 
written constitution, under the name of " The United 
TheConsti- Colonies of New England," in "a firm and 
tution. perpetual league of friendship and amity for 

offence and defence, mutual advice and succor, upon all 
just occasions, both for preserving and propagating the 
truth and libeities of the Gospel, and for their own 
mutual safety and welfare." Each colony was allowed to 
manage its internal affairs; but a body of eight federal 
commissioners, two from each colony, and all of them 
church members, were empowered to "determine all 
affairs of war or peace, leagues, aids, charges, and num- 
bers of men for war, division of spoils and whatsoever 
was gotten by conquest, receiving of more confederates 
for plantations into combination with any of the confeder- 
ates, and all things of like nature which were the proper 
concomitants or consequents of such a confederation for 
amity, offence, and defence." Six commissioners formed 
a working majority of the board; but in case of disagree- 
ment, the question at issue was to be sent to the legisla- j 



1643-1660.] Massachusetts in Control. 157 

tures of the several colonies for decision. War expenses 
were to be levied against each colony in proportion to its 
male population between the ages of sixteen and sixty. 
The board was to meet at least once a year, and oftener 
when necessary. The president of the commissioners, 
chosen from their own number, was to be " invested with 
no power or respect " except that of a presiding officer. 



65. "Workings of the Confederation (1643-1660). 

The league which it represented is " interesting as the 
first American experiment in federation ; " but it had one 
fertile source of weakness. There were in the 
of r?p?ese^n- four colonies represented an aggregate popula- 
tation. ^Jqj^ Qf about twcuty-four thousand, of which 

Massachusetts contained fifteen thousand, the other three 
having not more than three thousand each. In case of 
war Massachusetts agreed to send one hundred men for 
every forty-five furnished by each of her colleagues. In 
two ways she bore the heaviest burden, — in the number 
of men sent to war, and in the amount of taxes levied 
therefor. As each colony was to have an equal vote in 
the conduct of the league, Massachusetts was placed at a 
disadvantage. She frequently endeavored to exercise 
larger power than was allowed her under the articles 
thus arousing the enmity of the smaller colonies, and 
endangering the existence of the union. 

Nevertheless, during the twenty years in which the con- 
federation was the strongest political power on the conti- 
Massachu- '^^"^ ^^ North America, Massachusetts main- 
setts in tained control of its general policy. Maine 
and the settlements along Narragansett Bay in 
vain made application to join the confederation. It was 
objected that public order was not established in Rhode 
Island, and moreover the oath taken by the freemen 



158 Development of New England. [Ch. vii, 

there bespoke fealty to the English king. As for Maine, 
its proprietor, Gorges, was enlisted on the side of the 
monarch, and the poHtical system in vogue in his province 
differed from that in the other colonies. 

The board was little more than a committee of pubhc 
safety ; it acted upon the colonial legislatures, and not on 
Nature of the individual colonists, and had no power to 
Com^J-^ °^ enforce its decrees. One of its early interests 
sioners. was the building up of Harvard College ; and 
at its request there was taken up, throughout the four 
colonies, a contribution of " corn for the poor scholars in 
Cambridge." 

In the articles of confederation there was no reference 
whatever to the home government. The New Eng- 
Local inde- ^^i^ders had taken charge of their own affairs, 
pendence apparently without a thought of the supremacy 

greater than r .^. \. r ^ t-u • -4- f 

national of Cither kmg or parliament. The spirit of 
patriotism, jocal independence among these people was 
greater than national patriotism. With Laud in prison 
and the king an outcast, there could be no interference 
from that quarter, and Parliament was too busy just then 
to give much thought to the doings of the distant Amer- 
ican colonists. In November (1643) Parliament insti- 
tuted a commission for the government of the colonies, 
with the Earl of Warwick at its head; but it was of small 
avail so far as New England was concerned. 

Massachusetts was ever in an attitude of jealousy 
towards even a suspicion of interference from England. 
Jealousy of In 1644 the General Court voted that any 
j.»terfej-ence qj^^ attempting to raise soldiers for the king 
land. should be " accounted as an offender of an 

high nature against this commonwealth, and to be pro- 
ceeded with, either capitally or otherwise, according to 
the quality and degree of his offence." The colony was, 
however, no more for the Commons than for the king. 



1643-1653] Workings of the Confederation. 159 

When, in 165 1, Parliament desired that Massachusetts 
surrender her charter granted by King Charles and re- 
ceive a new one at its hands, for a year no notice was 
taken of the command ; when at last England had a war 
with Holland on her hands, the Massachusetts men 
evasively replied that they were quite satisfied " to live 
under the government of a governor and magistrates of 
their own choosing and under laws of their own making." 
The General Court was also bold enough to establish a 
colonial mint (1652), and for thirty years coined " pine- 
tree shillings," in the face of all objections. In 1653 
Cromwell, always a firm friend to New England, was 
declared Lord Protector; yet Massachusetts did not 
allow the event to be proclaimed within her borders, 
and when he wished Massachusetts to help him in his 
war against the Dutch by capturing New Amsterdam, the 
colonial court somewhat haughtily " gave liberty to his 
Highness's commissioners" to raise volunteers in her 
territory. At the Restoration it was not until warning 
came from friends in England, that Charles II. was pro- 
claimed in New England. 

66. Disturbances in Rhode Island (1641-1647). 

Over on Narragansett Bay the public peace continued 
to be disturbed by factious disputations. Because of 
T,. , . the freedom there s-enerously offered to all 

The sectaries » /.-,,, , t, i i 

onNarra- men, the settlements of Rhode Island and 
gansettBay. Pro^jdence were the harboring-place for dis- 
senters of every class, who for the most part had been 
ordered to leave the other colonies. Many of these per- 
sons were of the Baptist fj3.ith, or held other theological 
views which would be considered sober enough in our 
day; but among them were numerous rank fanatics, whom 
no well-ordered society was calculated to please. 



i6o Development of New Eitgland. [Ch. VII. 

Some of Roger Williams's adherents had built Paw- 
tuxet. To them came a band of fanatics, headed by 
The case of Samuel Gorton, described by his orthodox 
Gorton. neighbors as "a proud and pestilent seducer," 
of " insolent and riotous carriage," but who was by 
no means so black as they painted him. The Paw- 
tuxet settlers asked Massachusetts (1641) "of gentle 
courtesy and for the preservation of humanity and 
mankind," to "lend a neighbor-like helping hand " and 
relieve them of the disturber. At the same time they 
secured the annexation of their town to Massachusetts, 
so that it might be within the jurisdiction of the latter. 
Gorton and nine of his followers were taken as prisoners 
to Boston (1643), where they were convicted of blas- 
phemy, and after four or five months at hard labor were 
released, with threats of death if they did not at once 
depart from Massachusetts soil. 

Gorton went to England (1646) and appealed to the 
parliamentary commissioners, who declared that he 
might " freely and quietly live and plant " upon his land 
which he had purchased from the Indians at Shawomet 
(Warwick), on the western shore of Narragansett Bay. 
Edward Winslow of Plymouth was now sent over (1647) to 
represent Massachusetts in the Gorton case ; and through 
him the plea was entered that the commissioners, being 
far distant from America, should not undertake the de- 
cision of appeals from the colonies ; and moreover, that 
the Massachusetts charter was an "absolute power of 
government." The commissioners, in return, protested 
that they " intended not to encourage any appeals from 
your justice;" nevertheless, they "commanded" the 
General Court to allow Gorton and his followers to dwell 
in peace; but "if they shall be faulty, we leave them to 
be proceeded with according to justice." The offender 
was allowed to return, but his presence was haughtily 



1641-1647-] Troubles in Rhode Island. 161 

ignored; and when his settlement was threatened by 
Indians, he cited in vain the parliamentary order as a 
warrant for assistance. 



67. Policy of the Confederation (1646-1660). 

The sturdy and independent spirit of the colonists was 
expressed in words as well as in deeds. While Winslow 
-, . was thus representing the colonists in England 

Expressions . 

ofindepen- he made his famous reply to those who were 
^°^^' disposed to criticise the formation of the New 

England confederacy as a presumptuous assertion of 
independence : " If we in America should forbear to 
unite for offence and defence against a common enemy 
till we have leave from England, our throats might be all 
cut before the messenger would be half seas through,'" 
A similar impatience of authority from England was ex- 
pressed by Governor John Winthrop. An opinion which 
he delivered about this time betokened the proud and in/- 
dependent attitude of Massachusetts, and was prophetic 
of the spirit of the Revolution. By a legal fiction, when 
the king granted land in America it was held as being in 
the manor of East Greenwich. It was said that the 
American colonists were represented in that body by 
the member returned from the borough containing this 
manor, and were therefore subject to Parliament. Win- 
throp held, however, that the supreme law in the colonies 
was the common weal, and should parliamentary author- 
ity endanger the welfare of the colonists, then they would 
be justified in ignoring that authority. 

Religious liberty was quite as dear to the New Eng- 
land people as political liberty. In 1645, under Scottish 
The Pres- influence, Presbyterianism was established by 
bytenans. ^^^ of Parliament as the state religion of 
England. Massachusetts was, however, stoutly Inde- 
II 



1 62 Development of New England. [Ch. VII. 

pendent, and furnished some of the chief champions for 
that faith during the great controversy which was then 
raging between the two sects on both sides of the water. 
A number of Massachusetts Presbyterians sought (1646) 
to induce the home government to settle churches of 
their faith in the colonies, and to secure the franchise to 
ail, regardless of religious affiliation ; but before they 
reached England to state their case the Independents 
were again in the ascendent, and the Puritan theocracy in 
Massachusetts was undisturbed. Two years later (1648) 
a synod of churches was held at Cambridge, at which 
was formulated a church discipline familiarly styled "the 
Cambridge platform." In it the Westminster Confes- 
sion was approved, the powers of the clergy defined, 
the civil power invoked to "coerce" churches which 
should " walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt 
way of their own," and the term " Congregational" estab- 
hshed, to distinguish New England orthodoxy from "those 
corrupt sects and heresies which showed themselves 
under the vast title of Independency." In 1649 this plat- 
form was laid by the General Court before the several 
congregations, and two years later it was formally 
agreed to. 

It was hardly to be supposed that a people so little 
inclined to acknowledge the rights of England should 
Encroach- treat with greater respect those of Holland; 
Dutch pof ^""^ indeed they had the countenance of the 
sessions. home government in encroachments upon the 
Dutch colonies. In 1642 Boswell, who represented 
England at the Hague, advised his fellow-countrymen in 
New England to " put forward their plantations and 
crowd on, crowding the Dutch out of those places where 
they have occupied." 

The New Englanders were not slow to adopt this 
aggressive policy. Settlements were pushed out west- 



1646-1652.] Presbyterianism and the Dutch. 163 

ward from New Haven on the mainland, and southward 
on Long Island. Peter Stuyvesant, then governor of 
New Netherland, bitterly complained of these encroach- 
ments, — for the Dutch then claimed everything between 
the Connecticut and Delaware rivers, — and appealed to 
the federal commissioners to put a stop to them ; but the 
answer came that the Dutch were selling arms and 
ammunition to the Indians, that their conduct was not 
conducive to peace, that they harbored criminals from 
the English colonies, and that the United Colonies pro- 
posed to " vindicate the English rights by all suitable 
and just means." Stuyvesant, who was a hot-headed 
man, would have liked to go to war with the New Eng- 
landers, but was informed by the Dutch West India 
Company that war " cannot in any event be to our ad- 
vantage : the New England people are too powerful for 
us." The matter was finally (1651) left to arbitrators, 
who settled a provisional boundary line which " on the 
mainland was not to come within ten miles of the Hud- 
son River," and which gave to Connecticut the greater 
part of Long Island. 

War broke out between England and Holland in 1652, 
and the Connecticut people were anxious to attack New 
Weakness of Netherland, which had not ceased its depre- 
theconfed- dations on the outlying settlements. All of 

eration in i r j , Jo 

the Dutch the federal commissioners except those from 
^^'■' Massachusetts voted to go to war ; there was 

a stormy session of the federal court, in which Massa- 
chusetts endeavored in vain to override the other col- 
onies. Connecticut and New Haven applied to Cromwell 
for assistance. He sent over a fleet to Boston, with 
injunctions to Massachusetts to cease her opposition. 
The General Court stoutly refused to raise troops for the 
enterprise, although it gave to the agents of Cromwell 
the privilege of enlisting five hundred volunteers in the 



1 64 Development of New England. [Ch. Vli 

colony if tliey could. But while arrangements were in 
progress for an attack by eight hundred men on New 
Amsterdam, news came that England and Holland had 
proclaimed peace (April 5, 1654), and warlike prepara- 
tions in America ceased. 

The weakness of the New England confederation was 
evident in domestic affairs as well as in foreign wars. 
Massachu- Massachusetts was frequently in collision with 
setts in col- the commissioners. An instance occurred as 

lision with 1111 

the commis- early as 1642-1643, when trouble broke out 
sioners. ^-^^ ^^ Narragansetts, who were friends and 

allies of the disturber Gorton at Shawomet. Massachu- 
setts refused to sanction hostihties ; nevertheless the 
commissioners despatched a federal force against the 
Indians ; but the expedition proved futile, owing to lack 
of support from the chief colony. 

Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was 

purchased by the Connecticut federation in 1644. ^^ 

order to compensate herself, Connecticut levied 

Contention ^ 

between toll ou every vessel passing up the river. 
and Massa- Massachusetts owned the valley town of 
chusetts. Springfield, and entered complaint before the 
commissioners (1647) that Connecticut had no right to 
tax Massachusetts vessels trading with a Massachusetts 
town. Two years later (1649) the commissioners de- 
cided in favor of Connecticut ; whereupon Massachusetts 
levied both export and import duties at Boston designed 
to hamper the trade of her sister colonies ; at the same 
time she demanded that because of her greater size she 
be allowed three commissioners, and insisted that the 
power of the federal body be reduced. This action 
created great hostility, and threatened at one time to 
break up the union. By 1654 the contention had been 
allowed to drop on both sides, and duties on intercolo- 
nial trade ceased. 



1656.] The Quakers. 165 

68. Repression of the Quakers (1656-1660). 

During the remainder of the Commonwealth period 
the most serious question which arose in New England 
_ was what to do with the Quakers. In the the- 

Treatment '^ . 

of the ocracy ot the seventeenth century the atti- 

Quakers. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^y^ theologically and 

politically well calculated to arouse hostility. They 
would strip all formalities from religion, they would rec- 
ognize no priestly class, they would not take up arms in 
the common defence, would pay no tithes and take no 
oath of allegiance, they doubted the efficacy of baptism, 
had no veneration for the Sabbath, and had a large re- 
spect for the right of individual judgment in spiritual 
matters. They were aggressive and stubborn, and, 
goaded on by persecution, broke out into fantastic dis- 
plays of opposition to the State religion. In England 
four thousand of them were in jail at one time. When 
Anne Austin and Mary Fisher arrived in Boston (1656) 
from England, by way of the Barbados, as a van- 
guard of the Quaker missionary army, the colonial au- 
thorities were aghast with horror. The adventurous 
women were shipped back to the Barbados, and a law 
was enacted against " all Quakers, Ranters, and other 
notorious heretics," providing for their flogging and 
imprisonment at hard labor. Despite this harsh treat- 
ment, the Quakers continued to arrive. Roger Williams 
said, when applied to by Massachusetts to harry them 
out of Rhode Island: where they are "most of all suf- 
fered to declare themselves freely, and only opposed by 
arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to 
come. . . . They are likely to gain more followers by 
the conceit of their patient sufferings than by consent to 
their pernicious sayings." Nevertheless, Rhode Island 
was and is the stronghold of the Friends in New 
England. 



1 66 Development of New England. [Ch. vil. 

In 1657 it was enacted that Quakers who had once 
been sent away and returned, should have their ears 
lopped off, and for the third offence should have their 
tongues pierced with red-hot irons. Banishment on pain 
of death was recommended by the federal commissioners 
in 1658 ; and in 1659-1660 four Quakers lost their lives by 
hanging on Boston Common. Public sentiment revolted 
at these spectacles, and in 1660 the Massachusetts death- 
law was repealed, and Quakers were thereafter subjected 
to nothing worse than being flogged in the several towns; 
even this gradually ceased, with the growth of a more 
humane spirit. In Connecticut the sect suffered but 
little persecution, and in Rhode Island none ; while 
Plymouth and New Haven were nearly as harsh in their 
treatment as Massachusetts. 

The restoration of royalty in England (1660) began a 

new epoch in the history of the colonies. Their control 

was placed in the hands of a council for the 

New Eng- , ^ . , , • -n 

land in the plantations, and twelve privy councillors were 
counciffor^ designated to take New England in charge, 
the planta- The Quakers had seized the opportunity of 
gaining an early hearing from the new king, 
who was charitably disposed towards them. In its ad- 
dress to Charles, the Massachusetts court expatiated on 
the factious spirit of the Quakers ; but the king replied 
that while he meant well by the colonies, he desired that 
hereafter the Quakers be sent to England for trial, — a 
desire which was as a matter of course disregarded. 

69. Royal Commission (1660-1664). 

It is not surprising that the king was disposed to look 
with suspicion upon the men of New England. He had 
been told that the confederacy was *' a war combination 
made by the four colonies when they had a design to 
throw off their dependence on England, and for that pur 



1657-1664.] Royal Commission. 167 

pose." The New Englanders, too, had been somewhat 
slow to proclaim his ascendancy; while two of the judges 
The king ^^^ ^^"^ Sentenced his father to death, Goffe 
suspects and Whaliey, were screened from royal justice 
land's "^' by the people of New Haven, and afterwards 
loyalty. |^y. j-j^Qse of Hadley, a Massachusetts town in 

the Connecticut valley. Massachusetts had been bold 
enough when the home government was so distracted by 
other affairs as to render attention to the colonies imprac- 
ticable; now that Charles appeared to be turning his atten- 
tion to America a more politic course was pursued. Simon 
Bradstreet, a leading layman, and John Norton, promi- 
nent among the ministers, were sent to England to make 
peace with the Crown, and soon returned (1662) with a 
gracious answer, which, however, was coupled with an 
order to the court to grant all " freeholders of compe- 
tent estate " the right of suffrage and office-holding, 
"without reference to their opinion or profession," to 
allow the Church of England to hold services, to ad- 
minister justice in the name of the king, and to compel 
all inhabitants to swear allegiance to him. The court 
decreed that legal papers should thereafter run in the 
king's name; but all other matters in the royal mandate 
were referred to a committee which failed to report upon 
them. 

Affairs now went on peacefully enough in Massachu- 
setts until 1664. In that year the king sent over four 
Arrival of ^oyal Commissioners to look after the colonies, 
royal com- among them being Samuel Maverick, one of 

missioners. ,, -r^ , . . . , i i i 

the Presbyterian petitioners who had made 
trouble for the New Englanders a few years before. 
These commissioners were required " to dispose the 
people to an entire submission and obedience to the 
king's government;" also to feel the public pulse in 
Massachusetts, in order to see whether the Crown might 



1 68 Development of Nczv England. [Ck. VIi. 

not judiciously assume to appoint a governor for that 
colony. They arrived at Boston in July with two ships- 
of-war and four hundred troops. Obtaining help from 
Connecticut, the expedition proceeded to New Amster- 
dam and easily conquered that port from the Dutch. 
During the months the commissioners were at Boston 
they were engaged in a prolonged quarrel with the 
Massachusetts men, who claimed that their charter 
allowed them to govern themselves after their own 
fashion, without interference from a royal commission. 
The court was persistently importuned to give a plain 
answer to the king's demands sent out in 1662 ; but 
nothing satisfactory could be obtained, and the commis- 
sioners were obliged to return without having accom- 
plished their mission. The Dutch war against England 
was now going on, and political affairs at home were 
unquiet. A pohcy of delay had been profitable for 
Massachusetts. 

In the other colonies of New England better treatment 
had been accorded the commissioners. Connecticut had 
Treatmentof sent over her governor, the younger Winthrop, 
Connecticut, ^q represent her at court. He was well re- 
ceived there, being a man of scholarly tastes and pleas- 
ing manner; the king was the more disposed to favor him 
because by helping Connecticut a rival to Massachusetts 
would be built up. A liberal charter was granted to his 
colony; and New Haven — disliked by Charles for having 
harbored the regicides — was now, despite her protest, 
and of annexed to her sister colony. Rhode Island, 

Rhode too, was benefited by the royal favor, and re- 

ceived a charter making it a separate colony. 
Doubtless the fact that the people of Narragansett Bay 
had been shut out from the New England confederacy 
had inclined the king to look kindly upon them. For 
these reasons Connecticut and Rhode Island had re- 



1662-1684.] Prosperity. 169 

ceived the commissioners with consideration, while weak 
Plymouth was also praised for her ready obedience. 

The suppression of New Haven by the king, and the 
practical victory of the Quakers over the theocratic policy 
Decadence of Massachusetts, were staggering blows to 
confedera- ^^^^ Confederation. The federal commissioners 
tion. held triennial meetings thereafter until 1684, 

when the Massachusetts charter was revoked; but its 
proceedings, except during King Philip's war, were of 
little importance. 

The period of the decadence of the confederation, how- 
ever, was in the main one of prosperity for New Eng- 
A prosper- land. Emigration to America had almost wholly 
ous period, ccased after 1640, with the rise of the Puritans 
in England; but the restoration of the Stuarts and the 
passage of the Act of Uniformity, with its accompanying 
persecutions, caused a renewal of the departure of Dis- 
senters, and the movement included many, both laymen 
and clericals, of eminent ability. New industries were 
introduced, commerce grew, the area of settlement ex- 
tended, and wealth increased. 

But the accretion of wealth and the passage of time 
brought changes in the attitude towards England that 
Change of threatened in a measure to counteract the quiet 
warS^Eig' Struggle for independence which had been 
land. going on for nearly half a century. A second 

generation of Americans had come upon the stage, with 
but a traditional knowledge of the tyrannies practised 
upon their fathers in the old country. Larger wealth 
secured greater leisure, which resulted in a cultivation of 
the graceful arts, with a softening of the austere manners 
and thinking of the first emigrants. There was now 
manifest a desire on the part of many members of the 
upper class to bring about closer relations with the Old 
World, with its fine manners, its aristocracy, and its 



170 Development of New England, [Ch. VIL 

historic associations. Opposition to England began to 
give place to imitation of England ; colonial life had 
entered the provincial stage. Two parties had by this 
time sprung up, although as yet without organization, — 
one desiring to conciliate England, the other standing for 
independence in everything except in name. Thus far 
none had ventured to think of the possibility of dissolving 
all political connection with the mother-land. 



70. Indian "Wars (1660-1678). 

The Indian policy of the New Englanders was more 
humane than that adopted in any of the other colonies 
Indian exccpt Pennsylvania. Compensation had been 

JJew^E^ng- granted to the savages for lands taken, firm 
land friendships had been formed between some 

of the chiefs and the whites, and the missionary enter- 
prises among the red-men were conducted on a large 
scale and with much zeal. Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, 
and the country round about Boston were the centres of 
proselytism ; the " praying Indians " were gathered into 
village congregations with native teachers, most notable 
being those under the supervision of John Eliot, "the 
apostle." Of these converted Indians there were in 1674 
about four thousand ; several hundred of them were 
taught a written language invented by Eliot, who success- 
fully undertook the monumental labor of translating the 
Bible into it for their benefit. 

Massasoit, head-chief of the Pokanokets, had made a 
treaty of alliance with the Plymouth colonists soon after 
Troubles their arrival, and kept it strictly until his death 
with Philip. (1660). His two sons were christened at Ply- 
mouth as Alexander and PhiHp. Alexander died (1662) 
at Plymouth, where he had gone to answer to a charge 
of plotting with the Narragansetts against the whites. 



1660-1675] King Philip's War. 171 

Philip, now chief sachem, wrongfully thinking his brother 
to have been poisoned, was thereafter a bitter enemy of 
the dominant race. For twelve years there were nu- 
merous complaints against him, and he was frequently 
summoned to Plymouth to make answer. He was smooth- 
spoken and fair of promise, but came to be regarded as 
an unsatisfactory person with whom to deal. In 1674 it 
became evident that Philip was planning a general Indian 
uprising, to drive the Enghsh out of the land. 

His territory was now chiefly confined to Mount Hope, 
— a peninsula running into Narragansett Bay ; and here 
j^j^ he " began to keep his men in arms about 

Philip's him, and to gather strangers unto him, and to 
march about in arms towards the upper end 
of the neck on which he lived, and near to the English 
houses." On the twentieth of June a party of his war- 
riors attacked the little town of Swanzey, killing many 
settlers and perpetrating fiendish outrages. War-parties 
from Mount Hope now quickly spread over the country, 
joined by the Nipmucks and other tribes. Throughout 
the white settlements panic prevailed, and several towns 
in Massachusetts, as far west as the Connecticut valley, 
were scenes of heart-rending tragedies. 

The Narragansetts had played fast and loose in this 
struggle, their disaffection growing with the success of 
the savage arms. It was evident that unless crushed, 
they would openly espouse Philip's cause in the coming 
spring, and the danger be doubled. A thousand volun- 
teers, enlisted by the federal commissioners, on Decem- 
ber 19 attacked their palisaded fortress in what is now 
South Kingston. Two thousand warriors, with many 
women and children, were gathered within the walls. 
About one thousand Indians were slain in the contest, 
which was one of the most desperate of its kind ever 
fought in America. 



1/2 Development of New England. [Ch. VII. 

The following spring and summer Philip again made 
bloody forays on the settlements ; but he was persistently 
attacked, his followers were scattered, and he was at last 
driven, with a handful of followers, into a swamp on Mount 
Hope. Here (Aug. 12, 1676) he was shot to death by a 
friendly Indian, and "fell upon his face in the mud and 
water, with his gun under him; . . . upon which the whole 
army gave three loud huzzas." His hands and head 
were cut off and taken to Boston and Plymouth respec- 
tively, in token to the people at home that King Philip's 
war was at an end, and that thereafter white men were to 
be supreme in New England. 

During the two years' deadly struggle the colonists 
had been surfeited with horrors, of which the statistics of 
„ loss can convey but slight idea. Of the eighty 
of the or ninety towns in Plymouth and Massachu- 

struggle. setts, nearly two-thirds had been harried by 
the savages, — ten or twelve wholly, and the others par- 
tially destroyed; while nearly six hundred fighting men — 
about ten per cent of the whole — had either lost their 
lives or had been taken prisoners, never to return. It 
was many years before the heavy war-debts of the col- 
onies could be paid ; in Plymouth the debt exceeded 
in amount the value of all the personal property. 

The year before Philip fell (1675), trouble broke out 
with the Indians to the north, on the Piscataqua. In 
the summer of 1678 the English of Maine felt themselves 
compelled to purchase peace, thus establishing a pre- 
cedent which fortunately has. not often been followed in 
America. The home government was much annoyed at 
the obstinacy of the colonists in not calling on it for aid 
in these two Indian w^rs. Jealous of English interfer- 
ence, they preferred to fight their battles for themselves, 
and thus to give no excuse to the king for maintaining 
royal troops in New England. 



1649-1676.] Massachusetts and the King, 173 



71. Territorial Disputes (1649-1685). 

Massachusetts early gave evidence of a desire to ex- 
tend her territory. Disputes in regard to lands fre- 
quently gave rise to quarrels with the Indians. 

Massachu- ?• / , . r .,i, 

setts extends In 1649 the Strip of mainland along Long 
her territory. i^\^^^ Sound, between the western boundary 
of Rhode Island and Mystic River, was granted to her 
by the federal commissioners. From 1652 to 1658 she 
absorbed the settlements in Maine, now neglected by the 
heirs of Gorges, just as in 1642-1643 she had annexed 
the New Hampshire towns. The council for foreign 
plantations had been dissolved in 1675, and the manage- 
ment of colonial affairs was resumed by a standing com- 
mittee of the Privy Council styled " the Lords of the 
Committee of Trade and Plantations." At this time the 
Gorges and Mason heirs renewed their respective claims 
to Maine and New Hampshire, which they said had been 
wrongfully swallowed up by Massachusetts. 

Other complaints against the Bay Colony, that had 
been allowed to slumber for some time, were now revived, 
The king's and the Lords of Trade, as they were familiarly 
agamsTnas- called, were soon sitting in council upon the 
sachusetts. deeds of the obstinate colony. The king's 
charges of early years were again advanced: that the 
Acts of Navigation and Trade (page 104) were not being 
observed ; that ships from various European countries 
traded with Boston direct, without paying duty to Eng- 
land on their cargoes ; that money was being coined at 
a colonial mint ; and that Church of England members 
were denied the right of suffrage. Edward Randolph, 
a relative of the Masons, was sent over (1676) to be col- 
lector at the port of Boston, now a town of five thousand 
inhabitants, and to investigate the colonies. His manner 
was insulting, and he was rudely treated by the people, 



174 Development of New England. [Ch. VIL 

who were greatly embittered against England in conse- 
quence of his malicious reports to the home government. 

In 1679 the king erected New Hampshire into a 
separate royal province. Edward Cranfield, a tyrannical 
New Ham '^'^'^i became the governor (1682), but his 
shire a royal conduct drove the people into insurrection, 
province. ^^ ^^^ obliged to fly to the West Indies 
(1685), and in the same year New Hampshire was reunited 
to Massachusetts. 

In 1665 the royal commissioners detached Maine from 
Massachusetts ; but three years later (1668) that com- 
Massachu- monwealth calmly took it back again. Gorges 
chases""^" ^^^ inclined to make trouble, and agents of 
Maine. Massachusetts quietly purchased his claim 

(1677) for ;!^i,25o. The skilful manoeuvre excited the 
displeasure of the king, who had intended himself to 
buy out the claims of Gorges, in order to erect Maine 
into a proprietary province for his reputed son, the Duke 
of Monmouth. The company of Massachusetts Bay now 
governed Maine under the Gorges charter as lord pro- 
prietor, and did not make it a part of the Massachusetts 
colony. 

72. Kevocation of the Charters (1679-1687). 

It was two years later (1679) before Charles was 
ready again to make a movement upon Massachusetts. 
The Massa- Hc demanded that Maine should be delivered 
*^haSr^ n- "P *^ ^^ Crown, on repayment of the pur- 
nuiied. chase money, and also that all other com- 

plaints should at once be satisfied. The General Court 
gave an evasive answer, and adopted its usual method 
of sending over agents to ward off hostilities by a policy 
of delay. But in 1684 the blow came : a writ of quo 
warranto was issued against the simple trading charter 
under which Massachusetts had so long been permitted 



i679-^6SS.] The Ride of Andros. 175 

to grow and prosper ; the charter was held to be an- 
nulled, and the colony now became a royal possession. 

With the death of Charles II. (1685), James II. came 
to the English throne. As a Roman Catholic, and im- 
Arrivalof bued with a taste for absolute power, the 
Andros. colonies had little favor to expect from him. 
In 1686, as a step towards abolishing the American 
charters, James sent over Sir Edmund Andros as gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Hampshire, and 
Maine; he brought authority to ignore all local political 
machinery and to govern the country through a council, 
the president of which was Joseph Dudley, the unpop- 
ular Tory son of the stern old Puritan who had been 
Winthrop's lieutenant. The charters of Rhode Island 
and Connecticut were demanded for annulment (1686). 
The former colony was, as usual, obedient, and yielded up 
her charter ; Connecticut failed to respond to the de- 
mand of Andros, and he went to Hartford (October, 
1687) and ordered the charter to be produced. A famil- 
iar myth alleges that the document was concealed from 
him in the hollow trunk of a large tree, known ever after 
as the " charter oak ; " nevertheless Andros arbitrarily 
declared the colony annexed to the other New England 
colonies which he governed. 

The following year (1688) Andros was also made gov- 
ernor of New York and the Jerseys, his jurisdiction now 
His despotic extending from Delaware Bay to the confines 
rule. Qf New France, with his seat of government at 

Boston. The government of Andros was despotic, and 
fell heavily on a people who had up to this time been ac- 
customed to their own way. Episcopal services were held 
in the principal towns, and Congregational churches were 
frequently seized upon for the purpose ; the writ of habeas 
corpus was suspended; a censorship of the press was 
restored, with Dudley as censor; excessive registry fees 
were charged; arbitrary taxes were levied; land grants 



1/6 Development of Nezv E7igland, [Ch. VII. 

made under formdr administrations were annulled ; pri- 
vate property was unsafe from governmental interference ; 
common lands were enclosed and divided among the 
friends of Andros ; the General Court was abolished, and 
most popular rights were ignored. Dudley tersely de- 
scribed the situation (1687) on the trial of the Rev. John 
Wise, of Ipswich, for heading a movement in that town 
to resent taxation without representation : " Mr. Wise, you 
have no more privileges left you than not to be sold for 
slaves." 

73, Kestoration of the Charters (1689-1692). 

In April, 1689, news came of the Revolution in Eng- 
land, the flight of the arrogant James, and the accession 
Andros of the Prince of Orange. The example of re- 
deposed, volt was already foreshadowed in Boston, where 
Andros and Dudley were deposed. Elsewhere in the 
Northern colonies the representatives of the tyrant ex- 
tortioners were driven out. The Protestant sovereigns, 
William and Mary, were proclaimed amid great popular 
rejoicings. 

The old charters were restored for the time. In Sep- 
tember, 1 69 1, Plymouth and the newly acquired territory 
New Eng- of Acadia were united to Massachusetts under 
lxrn-""'^^''j a new charter, which had been secured from 

William and ' 

Mary. the king chiefly through the agency of the 

Rev. Increase Mather, of Boston, now influential in colo- 
nial politics, as were also other members of the Mather 
family. In May following (1692) this new charter for 
Massachusetts was received at Boston. It was not as 
liberal as had been hoped. The people were allowed 
their representative assembly as before, but the governor 
was to be appointed by the Crown ; the religious quali- 
fication for suffrage was abolished, a small property 
qualification (an estate of ^40 value, or a freehold worth 
£1 a year) being substituted; laws passed by the General 



1689- 1 7oo] Re- ConstiUiiion of New England, 177 

Court were subject to veto by the king, — a provision 
fraught with danger to the colonists. Thus Massachu- 
setts became a Crown charter colony, — a position not 
uncomfortable so long as the executive and the legisla- 
ture could agree. The first royal governor, Sir William 
Phipps (1692-1695), proved to be popular, generous, and 
well-meaning. He had a romantic history, but was of 
slender capacity, and owed his appointment to the favor 
of his pastor, Increase Mather. 

Connecticut and Rhode Island received their charters 
back ; New Hampshire was governed by its new pro- 
prietor, Samuel Allen, but without a charter; Maine 
continued under Massachusetts, — the Bay Colony now 
extending from Rhode Island to New Brunswick, except 
for the short intervening strip of New Hampshire coast. 

It was fortunate for American Hberty that the scheme 
of a consolidation of the New England colonies was put 
forward by the Stuarts too late for accompHshment. It 
was also fortunate that Massachusetts was flanked by and 
often competed with by her neighbors, Plymouth, Con- 
necticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, who were 
protected against her by a jealous government in Eng- 
land, and that the Dutch cut off her ambitious territorial 
aspirations to the west. In the separate colonial life was 
sown the spirit of local patriotism which is now embodied 
in the American States. In New England, as in the 
South, there was a leading, but never a dominant, colony ; 
the smaller colonies shared the experiences of the larger, 
but were freer from calamitous changes, and enjoyed in 
some respects governments which were more immediately 
under the control of the people. 

The end of the century saw all the New England colo- 
nies estabhshed on what seemed a permanent basis of 
loyalty to the Crown and of local independence. 



178 New Eiigland, [Ch. vill. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN NEW 
ENGLAND IN 1700. 



74. References. 

Bibliographies. — Same as §§ 47 and bT,, above; Channing 
and Hart, Guide, § 130. 

Historical Maps. — Same as § 47, above. 

General Accounts. — Osgood, Colonies; Doyle, Colonies, III. 
ch. ix.; Lodge, Colonics, ch. xxii.; W. Weeden, Economic and So- 
cial History; J. Bishop, History of American Manufactures; 
American Statistical Association Publications^ No. i. 

Special Histories. — Manners and customs : Earle, Costumes 
of Colonial Times, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 
Sabbath in Puritan New England, and Stage Coach and Tavern 
Days; W. Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay, and Old Colony 
Town; F. Child, Colonial Parsons of New England; J. Felt, 
Customs of New England; Fisher, Men, Women, and Manners, 
I. chs. ii.-v.; Howe, Puritan Republic, chs. v.-ix. ; W. Love, Fast 
and Thanksgiving Days; M. Ward, Old Colony Days; Wharton, 
Colonial Days and Dames. — Education : C. Johnson, Old Time 
Schools and School Books; E. Brown, Making of our Middle 
Schools. — Theology: B. Adams, Emancipation of Massachtisetts ; 
F. Foster, New England Theology; M. Greene, Development of 
Religious Liberty in Connecticut; C. F. Adams, Antinomianism. — 
Press: C. Duniway, Freedom of Press in Massachusetts; G. 
Littlefield, Early Massachusetts Press; R. Roden, Cambridge 
Press. — Slavery: G. Moore, Slavery in Massachusetts; G. Wil- 
liams, Negro Race in America, 1619-1880; W. Dubois, Suppres- 
sion of Slave Trade. — On the witchcraft delusion : C. Upham, 
Salem Witchcraft; S. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft; J. Taylor, 
Witchcraft Delusion in Connecticut. — Medical practice : O. 
Holmes, Medical Profession in Massachusetts. See also, biog- 
raphies of prominent men. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Same as § 63, above. 



Ch. VIII.] Geoi^raphy, 179 

75. Land and People. 

North of Cape Cod the shores of New England are 
rugged and forbidding, though the coast-line is indented 
by numerous inlets from the sea, affording safe 
eograp y. ^j^(.j^Qj.^gg_ 'j'q ^^ south of the cape there are 
also abundant harbors ; but the mountains nowhere ap- 
proach the shore, and the beach is wide, with a sand strip 
extending for some distance inland, while treacherous 
shoals are not uncommon. The rivers, except those in 
Maine and the Merrimac and the Connecticut, are small, 
and have their sources in innumerable small la^es ; the 
upper streams fall in successions of picturesque cascades, 
the water-power of which is often profitably utilized in 
manufacturing ; and the larger rivers are held back by 
great dams, about which have grown up the manufactur- 
ing towns of Manchester, Nashua, Lowell, Lawrence, 
Holyoke, and many others. 

Two ranges of mountains traverse New England : 
the Green Mountains and their continuation, the Berk- 
shire Hills, run nearly north and south from Canada to 
Connecticut ; the White Mountains form a group, rather 
than a chain, nearer the coast. In the eastern half of 
Maine the low watershed comes down to within one 
hundred and forty miles of the sea-shore, and the Atlantic- 
coast region may be said practically to end there. The 
highest elevation in the Appalachian system north of 
North Carolina is Mount Washington (six thousand two 
hundred and ninety feet), in the White Mountain range. 
The soil of New England is for the most part thin, and 
interspersed with rocks and gravel. The banks of some 
of the principal rivers are enriched by alluvial deposits 
left by overflows ; there are fair pasturage lands in Ver- 
mont and New Hampshire, while Maine, back from the 
shore, has much good soil. The New England hills are 



i8o New Englmtd. [Ch. Vlli. 

rich in quarries of fine building stone. Their mineral 
wealth is not great ; iron and manganese have been found 
in considerable quantities, together with some anthracite 
coal, lead, and copper. Originall}' New England was one 
vast forest, and the trees had to be cleared away in order 
to prepare the soil for cultivation. The climate is subject 
to rapid variations, being generally accounted superb in 
the summer and autumn ; but the winters are long and 
severe, and the springs late and brief. 

The natural obstacles to human w^elfare in New Eng- 
land were great; but the English settlers were men of 
tough fibre and rare determination. They were not 
daunted by rugged hills, gloomy forest, harsh climate, 
and niggardly soil. With courageous toil they built up 
thrifty towns along the narrow slope, and erected endur- 
ing commonwealths, in which the English institutions to 
which they had been accustomed were reproduced, and 
often improved upon. 

The population of New England in 1700, by which 
time a second generation of Englishmen had arisen 
Thepopuia- ''^ America, is roughly estimated at about 
tion. a hundred and five thousand souls, of whom 

seventy thousand were in Massachusetts and Maine, five 
thousand in New Hampshire, six thousand in Rhode 
Island, and twenty-five thousand in Connecticut. The 
people were almost w^iolly of pure English stock. Up 
to 1640, when the first great Puritan exodus ceased, full 
twenty thousand English Dissenters, mainly from the 
eastern counties of England, came to New England ; 
thenceforth the population, says Palfrey, " continued to 
multiply on its own soil for a century and a half, in 
remarkable seclusion from other communities." During 
this time there was a small infusion of Normans from the 
Channel Islands, Welsh, Scotch-Irish (chiefly in 1652 and 
1719), and Huguenots (1685). It is computed that at the 



\ 



Ch. VI 1 1.] Population and Social Classes. i8i 

opening of the Revolutionary War ninety-eight per cent 
of New England people were English or unmixed des- 
cendants of Englishmen. Nowhere else in the American 
colonies was there so homogeneous a population, or one 
of such uniformly high quality. As said Stoughton, 
lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts (1692-1 701): "God 
sifted a whole nation, that he might send choice grain 
over into this wilderness." 

76. Social Classeu and Professions. 

Social distinctions were almost as sharply drawn in 
New England as in the South. There was a power- 
ful and much-respected aristocratic class, be- 
ginning with the village " squire " and ending 
with the Crown officials in the capital towns. " The 
foundations of rank," says Lodge, "were birth, ancestral 
or individual service to the State, ability, education, and 
to some extent wealth." The recognized classes were, 
in order of precedence, gentlemen, yeomen, merchants, 
and mechanics ; and at church the people were puncti- 
liously seated according to station. Down to 1772 the 
students in Harvard College were carefully arranged in 
the catalogue in the order of their social rank, the 
Hutchinsons, Saltonstalls, Winthrops, and Ouincys near 
the head. There was also a distinction between new- 
comers and old-comers, the " old family " class laying 
some pretensions to social superiority. The aristocrats 
were not men of leisure, — everybody in New England 
worked ; but the public offices and the professions were 
reserved for gentlemen. Now and then some of them 
conducted large estates, although aristocracy was not, as 
in England, supported on landed possessions and primo- 
geniture. The force of public opinion alone separated 
t the classes ; with the growth of the democratic idea, 
social barriers ultimately weakened, although they con- 



1 82 New EnglaJid. [Ch. VIII. 

tinued to appear in the politics of the commonwealth 
down to the middle of the present century. 

Slaves were comparatively few in number, the greater 
part of them being house and body servants, and they 
were not harshly treated ; travellers have left 
record of the fact that some of the humbler 
farmers ate at table with their human chattels. The race 
was, however, generally despised, and in one of the old 
churches in Boston is still to be seen the lofty "slaves' 
gallery." Judge Samuel Sewall issued the first public 
denunciation of slavery in Massachusetts, in a pamphlet 
issued in 1700, wherein he denounced " the wicked prac- 
tice." For many years this distinguished jurist and diarist 
followed up his assaults, allowing no opportunity to es- 
cape wherein he rnight espouse the cause of the op- 
pressed " blackamores " and mitigate the severity of the 
laws against them. But the colonists in general saw 
nothing in the system to shock their moral sense, and it 
was not until the Revolution that anti-slavery ideas began, 
in New England, to spread beyond a narrow circle of 
humanitarians. 

There was a full system of courts, ranging from the 
colonial judges down to the justices of the peace and 
The legal " Commissioners of small causes," appointed 
profession, ^y colonial authority in each town. The 
"magistrates were uniformly men of good character, of 
the upper, well-educated class, and rendered substantial 
justice, although not specially trained in the law. The 
legal profession was practically neglected throughout the 
seventeenth century, doubtless owing in great part to 
lack of facilities for study and to the overtowering im- 
portance of the ministry ; we do not read of a profes- 
sional barrister in Massachusetts until 1688. There was, 
however, no lack of litigation ; personal disputes were rife 
in Rhode Island, and in Connecticut there were frequent 



Ch. VIII.] Slavery and the Professions. 183 

legal contests between towns regarding lands. Between 
the colonies, also, there were complicated and hotly-con- 
tested boundary disputes. The bar gained strength, but 
it was not till about the middle of the eighteenth century 
that it stood beside the ministry. 

We have had frequent evidences, in preceding chap- 
ters, of the large influence of the clergy in the temporal 
Themin- affairs of New England. The ranks of the 
istry. Puritan ministry contained men of the best 

ability and station ; they were pre-eminently the strongest 
class, and as the popular leaders, deeply impressed their 
character upon the laws and institutions of the com- 
munity. They were held in great affection and rever- 
ence ; but in a body of sturdy, intelligent parishioners 
they could maintain their supremacy only by the exercise 
of superior mental gifts : their calling was one offering 
rich rewards for excellence, and attracted to it men of 
the finest calibre, like the Mathers and Hooker. The 
sloth or the dullard was soon taught by his people that he 
had mistaken his calling. Jonathan Edwards, although 
of a lifter period than that of which we are treating, was 
a fair type, and his early resolution " to live with all my 
might while I do hve," was an expression of the spirit 
which dominated his order. 

It was an age in which quackery flourished. The regu- 
lar physicians, though excellent men and highly regarded 
,, ,. . by the people, depended upon nostrums, and 

Medicine. ,■••,.,,.,, , , , 

had little medical knowledge ; they were in 
the main " herb-doctors " and " blood-letters." Many 
of the practitioners were barbers, and others clergymen. 
" This relation between medicine and theology," writes 
Dr. Holmes, "has existed from a very early period; from 
the Egyptian priest to the Indian medicine-man, the alli- 
ance has been maintained in one form or another. The 
partnership was very common among our British ances- 



1 84 Nezv England, [Ch. viii. 

tors." There were few facilities for the study of medicine 
in the colonies until after the Revolution. The first med- 
ical school in America was established in Philadelphia, 
about 1760. 

77. Occupations. 

Unlike the Southern colonists, New Englanders were 
dependent on England only for the most important man- 
Domestic ufactures. Mechanics were sufficiently nu- 
manufac- merous in every community. The lumber 
industry was important, and in Connecticut 
and Massachusetts there was profitable iron mining, 
which gave rise to several kindred pursuits. There 
being abundant water-power, small saw and grist mills 
were numerous ; there were many tanneries and dis- 
tilleries ; the Scotch-Irish in Massachusetts and New 
Hampshire made linens and coarse woollens, and beaver 
hats and paper were manufactured on a small scale. The 
people were largely dressed in homespun cloth, and a 
spinning-wheel was to be found in every farm-house. It 
was not until after the Revolution, however, that New 
England manufacturing interests attained much magni- 
tude ; the home government, through the Acts of Navi- 
gation and Trade (page 104), had discouraged, as far as 
possible, American efforts in this direction. 

The fisheries, particularly whale and cod, were an 
important source of income, those of Massachusetts 
being estimated, in 1750, at ^^250, 000 per year. 
Fishers' hamlets, with their great net-reels and 
drying stages, were strung along the shores. The men 
engaged in the traffic were hardy and bold, no weather 
deterring them from long voyages to Newfoundland and 
Labrador, while whale-fishers ventured into the Arctic 
seas. From their ranks were largely recruited the superb 
sailors who made the American navy famous in the two 
wars with England. 



Ch. VIII.] Manufactures and Comrne^xe, 185 

A pinnace, called the " Virginia," was constructed by 
the Popham colonists in 1607, — the first ocean-going 
Ship- vessel built in New England. Ship-building 

building. ^y^s first undertaken at Plymouth in 1625, and 
in Massachusetts six years later (1631). By 1650 New 
England vessels were to be seen all along the coast, 
and carried the bulk of the export cargoes. Before 1724 
English ship carpenters complained of American com- 
petition. In 1760 ships to the extent of twenty thou- 
sand tons a year were being turned out of American 
shipyards, — chiefly in New England ; and most of them 
found a market in the mother-country. 

Dried fish was the chief commodity carried out of New 
England, and was exported in American bottoms to 
Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. Fish- 
oil and timber were also sent out of Maine and 
Massachusetts to foreign countries ; hay, grain, and cattle 
were taken to New York, Philadelphia, and the West 
Indies. There was an active longshore coasting service 
by small craft, which ascended the rivers and gathered 
produce from the farmers ; these they took to neighbor- 
ing ports, and brought back other colonial products in 
exchange. Larger vessels went with miscellaneous cargoes 
to the West Indies, and returned with slaves and sugar. 
New Englanders manufactured rum from West India 
sugar and molasses, and exported the finished product. 
There are instances of New England ships taking rum to 
Africa, where it was exchanged for slaves; these slaves 
were then transported to the West Indies, to be bartered 
for sugar and molasses, which was carried home and 
converted into rum. It was a day when kegs of rum and 
wines were given to ministers at donation parties, and 
ministers themselves made brandy by the barrel for do- 
mestic use, and sold it to their parishioners. Wines 
were imported from Madeira and Malaga, and manu- 



1 86 New England. [Ch. viil. 

factured goods from England and the Continent. A very 
large and profitable business was done in the general 
carrying trade, which was developed by enterprising New 
England men in all the sister colonies. Boston alone 
employed, by the middle of the eighteenth century, about 
six hundred vessels in her foreign commerce, and a thou- 
sand in her fisheries and coast-trade. 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the popula- 
tion was in about equal degree engaged in trade and 
Distribution agriculture. Trade was the chief calling in 
ofoccupa- Rhode Island, and agriculture in Connecticut 
and New Hampshire, while in Maine and 
Massachusetts both flourished. All of the colonies were 
also much interested in the fisheries. 



78. Social Conditions. 

Boston, Newport, and New Haven were the chief towns; 
the former was at this time the centre of pohtical and mer- 
cantile life on the North American continent, 
and there were external evidences of consider, 
able wealth and some luxury. New Haven was famed for 
its prosperous appearance, and the houses of its rich men 
were of a better style of architecture than commonly seen 
in the colonies. Small villages, neighborhood centres 
of the several townships, abounded everywhere. The 
houses of the minister and the school-teacher, with the 
little shops of tradesmen and artisans, formed the nucleus 
around which the farm-houses were grouped with more o'* 
less density. The village streets, overhung with archi..g 
elms, were kept in tolerable order by the " hog-reeves," 
** fence-viewers," and other town officials. The quaint, 
roomy, gambrel-roofed houses were scrupulously plain and 
clean, and were presided over by model housewives. 



Ch. VIII.] Life and Majtners. 187 

The people in these rural communities were in mod- 
erate financial circumstances, neat in habit, intelligent, 
Life and ^^^ fairly educated ; both sexes, young and 
manners. old. Worked hard, were frugal, thrifty, and as 
a rule rigid in morals. While coldly reserved towards 
strangers, they were kind and hospitable, and noted far 
and wide for their acute inquisitiveness. They wore so- 
ber-colored garments except on Sunday, the important 
day of the week, when there was a general display of quaint 
finery of a sombre character. The men wore long stock' 
ings and knee-breeches, with buckled shoes ; workmen had 
breeches and jackets of leather, buckskin, or coarse can- 
vas, while those of higher degree were generally dressed 
in coarse homespun, — only the richest could afford 
imported cloths. Their great open fireplaces were ill- 
adapted to withstand the winter's rigor. Their churches 
were wholly unprovided with heating accommodations. 
Their diet was spare. The well-to-do prided themselves 
on their old silver tableware, and New England kit'fchens 
were noted for their displays of brightly burnished pewter 
and brasses. Cider and New England rum were favorite 
beverages ; but drunkenness was less prevalent than in 
the other colonies : the New England temperament was not 
inclined to excesses and roistering. The general tone of 
life was sedate, even gloomy; the Puritans had "a lurk- 
ing inherited distrust for enjoyment," yet they cultivated 
a certain dry humor, and for the young people there was 
not lacking a round of simple amusements, such as 
house-raisings, dancing parties, and husking, spinning, 
quilting, and apple-paring bees, into which the neighbor- 
hoods entered with great zest. In the towns there was 
more pretension and ceremonial ; but taking changed 
conditions into account, the life of the townspeople and 
their habits of thought differed but little from those of 
their rural cousins. 



1 88 New England. [Ch. viii. 

The highways were generally of fair character, but the 
larger streams were unbridged. Outside of the neighbor- 
Roads and hoods of the large towns wheeled vehicles, 
travel. except for heavy loads, were not common 

until the time of the Revolution. Horseback was the 
ordinary mode of travel. A tavern kept by some leading 
citizen could be found in every town, with good lodgings 
at reasonable rates, although there was general complaint 
of the cookery. Nowhere else in the colonies was there 
so much intercommunication as in New England. 

79. Moral and Keligious Conditions. 

A system of public education was among the first insti- 
tutions established by the Puritans. Each town had its 
school; by 1649 there was no New England 
colony, except Rhode Island, in which some 
degree of education was not compulsory. Deep learning 
was fare, but the people were well drilled in the rudi- 
ments ; except on the far-off borders of Maine there was 
no illiteracy in New England when the Revolution brolce 
out. Latin schools and academies soon supplemented 
parental instruction and the common schools. We have 
seen that Boston was but six years old when Harvard 
College was established (1636) ; and Yale College was 
opened at New Haven in the year 1700. 

Crime appears to have been less frequent in New Eng- 
land than in the Southern or the middle colonies; the 
highways were safe after the close of King 
""" ■ Philip's war and the Tarratine trouble ; doors 

and windows were seldom barred in the country, and 
young women could travel anywhere with perfect safety. 
The list of capital crimes was a long one in that day, as 
well in the mother-land as in the colonies, and hangings, 
particularly of the pirates who infested the coast, were 



Ch. VIII] Religion. 189 

spectacles frequently seen in New England. A more 
cruel form of punishment was reserved for the negro 
race. There were several cases of negroes being burned 
at the stake for murder or arson. Great publicity was 
given to all manner of punishments ; gibbets, stocks, 
ducking-stools, pillories, and whipping-posts were familiar 
objects in nearly every town. Criminals might also be 
branded, mutilated, or compelled to wear, conspicuously 
sewed to their garments, colored letters indicative of the 
offences committed. Hawthorne's romance of the " Scar- 
let Letter" is based on this last-named custom. 

Organized on the Independent, or Congregational, 
form, each religious congregation was a law unto itself, 
electing its own deacons and minister, and was 
eigiou- ^^^ \\x\\^ influenced by the occasional synods, 
or councils of churches, which at last fell into disuse. 
At first the Church was bitterly intolerant; but this spirit 
gradually softened as it became more and more separated 
from the State. By the close of the seventeenth century 
John Eliot complained that religion had declined ; in 
1749 Douglass was able to write, " At present the Con- 
gregationalists of New England may be esteemed among 
the most moderate and charitable of Christian profes- 
sions." The introduction of the Church of England 
under Andros aroused bitter opposition. Episcopalian- 
ism was vigorously preached against until the Revolution; 
but there was no great cause for complaint, as it was not 
sought to foist it upon the people, but to gain for it a 
hearing. The name "Bishop's palace," still applied to 
a house in Cambridge which was supposed when built 
to have been intended for an imported bishop, bears 
testimony to the popular feeling against the system. It 
had no success except among the Tory element in 
Boston and Portsmouth, — and later (1736-1750) in New 
Haven. In Rhode Island perfect tolerance made the 



IQO New England. [Ch. VIII. 

colony a harboring place for all manner of despised sects 
and factious disturbers driven out of other comraunilies, 
and the spirit of turbulence long reigned there. 

A " great awakening" of religious fervor affected New 
England between 1713 and 1744. Originating in North- 
" The great ampton, Mass., in revivals under Solomon 
awakening." Stoddard, the popular excitement became al- 
most frenzied under Jonathan Edwards, beginning in 
1734. A visit from George Whitefield, the English reviv- 
alist, in 1740 caused a great fervor of religious interest, 
and it is estimated that twenty-five thousand converts 
were made by the great agitator throughout his New 
England pilgrimage. By 1744, when Whitefield again 
visited the scene of his triumphs, the excitement had 
greatly subsided. 

80. The Witchcraft Delusion. 

The witchcraft craze at Salem is commonly thought to 
have been a legitimate outgrowth of the gloomy religion 
The witch- ^^ the Puritans. It was, however, but one of 
craft craze, those pauics of fear which during several cen- 
turies periodically swept over civilized lands. In the 
twelfth century thousands of persons in Europe were sac- 
rificed because the people believed them to be witches, in 
league with the devil, and with the power to ride through 
the air and vex humanity in many occult ways. Pope 
Innocent VIII. commanded (1484) that witches be ar- 
rested, and hundreds of odd and repulsive old women 
were burned or hanged in consequence. From King John 
down to 171 2, innocent lives were constantly sacrificed in 
England on this charge ; in the year 1661 alone, one hun- 
dred and twenty were hanged there. It was therefore no 
new frenzy that broke out in Massachusetts. In 1648 
Margaret Jones was hanged as a witch at Charlestown ; 
in 1656 the sister of Deputy-Governor Bellingham, for 



1692.] Witchci'aft Delusion. 191 

being "too subtle in her perception of what was occur- 
ring around her," suffered the same fate ; in 1688 an 
Irish washerwoman named Glover went to the gallows 
because a spiteful child said she had been bewitched by 
the poor creature. 

There was general despondency in Massachusetts in 
1692, the result of four small-pox epidemics which had 
quickly followed each other, the loss of the old, 
T e tna s. charter, a temporary increase in crime, finan- 
cial depression, and general dread of another Indian 
outbreak. The time was ripe for an epidemic of super- 
stitious fear. All at once it broke out with great fury 
in the old town of Salem. Despite the protest of Cotton 
Mather and other prominent clergymen, who, though 
believers in witches, condemned unjust methods of pro- 
cedure, a special court of oyer and terminer was hastily 
organized (1692) by the governor and council for the trial of 
the accused. Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton, who pre- 
sided over this extraordinary tribunal, was in active sym- 
pathy with the fanatics who conducted the prosecution. 
The witnesses were chiefly children, and the testimony 
the flimsiest ever seriously received in an American court 
of justice. But the judges, although sober and respect- 
able citizens, were as deluded as the people; while the 
frenzy lasted, nineteen persons were hanged for having 
bewitched children in the neighborhood, and one was 
pressed to death because he would not plead. Of the 
hundreds of others who were arrested, two died while 
in prison. 

By the following year the craze had exhausted itself, 
and there was a general jail-delivery. Many of the 
Sewaii'sre- children afterwards Confessed to the falsity of 
pentance. ^^^^ testimony. Samuel Sewall was one of 
the trial judges. He afterwards, while standing in his 
pew in the Old South Church at Boston, had read at the 



192 New England. [Ch. Vlii. 

desk a public declaration expressing his deep repentance 
that he had been in such grievous error, and asking the 
congregation to unite with him in praying for the forgive- 
ness of God. Cotton Mather, however, endeavored to 
vindicate himself by the statement, " I know not that 
ever I have advanced any opinion in the matter of witch- 
craft but what all the ministers of the Lord that I know 
of in the world, whether English or Scotch, or French or 
Dutch, are of the same opinion with me." 

Belief in witchcraft was not confined to Massachusetts. 
Evidence of this superstition — childish to us of to-day, 
.pj^g but a stern reality in the strongest minds of Cot- 

witchcraft ton Mather's time — was noticeable through- 
efse"vhe"re In out most of the colonies Until the middle of 
the colonies. ^^ eighteenth century. In 1705 a witch was 
"ducked" in Virginia. There were trials for witchcraft 
in Maryland during the last quarter of the seventeenth 
century, but there is no evidence extant of an execution. 
In Pennsylvania in 1683 a woman was tried as a witch. , 
and bound to good behavior. In 1779, during a similar 
panic among the French Creoles at Cahokia, 111., two I 
negro slaves were condemned to be hanged, and another 
to be burned alive while chained to a post, on the charge 
of practising sorcery; there is, however, no evidence that 
the sentence was carried out. 

81. Political Conditions. 

The town was in New England the political unit. 
The town-meeting was a primary assembly, at which j 
Administra- Were transacted all local affairs, — those which 
t^o"- came nearest to the individual. The colonial 

government dealt with general interests; the colonial I 
machinery of administration might break down, and yet ! 
the immediate needs of the people would have been for \ 
a time subserved by the town governments. This was ! 



Ch. VIII.] Political Conditions. 193 

the case at the beginning of the Revolution. But the 
indispensable function of legislation upon property and 
contracts, the definition of crimes, and all the judicial 
affairs of the people, were from the first carried out 
by the colony. In the town-meetings — and in church 
congregations, which were for a long period scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from them — the people were trained in self- 
government ; their intellects were sharpened, and there 
was bred a stout spirit of political self-sufficiency. By 
the beginning of the eighteenth century a freehold test for 
suffrage was common in New England, as in most of the 
American colonies. Taxes raised on land, polls, and 
personal property were not onerous, as public expendi- 
tures were carefully watched and criticised by a frugal 
people. The introduction of royal governors opened the 
door to bickerings between the executive and the legis- 
lature, — so prominent a feature in eighteenth-century 
colonial history prior to the Revolution. Up to 1700, 
with a few exceptions, the political machinery had run 
quite smoothly, when not subjected to outside interfer- 
ence. The several colonial governments in New Eng- 
land varied in detail, but they were alike in being largely 
independent of England, in being administered in a spirit 
of simplicity and economy, and in the extent to which 
the body of the people were enabled to influence the 
conduct of affairs. 

New England men were brave and liberty-loving, 

stoutly withstanding any attempt on the part of the home 

government to curtail their rights as Eng- 

Summary. f ^, 

lishmen or hamper their progress. They were 
not always successful in their resistance, but were 
vastly more independent than their French and Spanish 
neighbors ; and the principles of popular government 
were nowhere else, even in the English colonies, so suc- 
cessfully put in practice. They were hard-working, fru- 
13 



1 94 New E^tgland. [Ch. Vlii. 

gal, God-fearing, educated, and virtuous men. They 
sprang from a high quahty of pure EngHsh stock, and 
they had raised indeed "choice grain." They founded 
an enduring empire amid obstacles that two and a half 
centuries ago might well have seemed appalling* The 
creed of the Puritans was harsh, their view of life 
gloomy, and their church intolerant; but their mission, 
as they conceived it, was a serious one, and the stormy 
experience of Rhode Island was not calculated elsewhere 
to encourage looseness in religious thinking. They were 
enterprising and thrifty to a high degree. In com- 
merce, domestic trade, manufactures, and political saga- 
city, for nearly two centuries New England easily led all 
the American colonies. The nation owes much to the 
wisdom, the energy, and the fortitude of New England 
colonial statesmen ; and New England institutions are 
to-day in large measure characteristics of the American 
commonwealth. 



Ch. IX.] Middle Colonies, 195 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE COLONIZATION OF THE MIDDLE 
COLONIES (1609-1700). 



82. References. 

Bibliographies. — Larned, Literature of Americun History, 
92-100; Andrews, Colonial Self -Government, ch. xx.; Avery, II. 
417-421, 438-444, III. 413-41S, 430-432, 443-445; Winsor, III. 
411-420, 449-436, 495-516, IV. 409-442, 488-502; Channing and 
Hart, Guide, §§ 104-108. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. i, 2, and 3, this volume {Epoch 
Maps, Nos. I, 2, 3); Winsor, as above. 

General Accounts. — Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies; 
Doyle, Colonies, IV.; Lodge, Colonies, chs. ix.-xvi.; Channing, 
United States, I. chs. xvi., xvii., II. chs. ii., iv., v., vii.; Avery, II. 
chs. iv., xi., xii., III. chs. iv.-vi., xv., xvii., xviii., xxvi.; Andrews, 
as above, chs. v.-viii., xi., xii.; Winsor, III. chs. x.-xii., IV. chs. 
viii., ix. 

Special Histories. — New York : Roberts (Commonwealths), 
and Brodhead: O'Callaghan, New Netherlands; G. Schuyler, 
Colonial New York, I.; W. Griffis, New Netherland; histories of 
New York city by Innis, Janvier, Lamb, Rensselaer, Roosevelt, 
Stone, and Wilson. — Delaware: Conrad and Scharf; Jameson, 
Willem Usselinx. — New Jersey : Lee, Mulford, Raum, and 
Tanner; F. Stockton, Stories of New Jersey; A. Melick, Old New 
Jersey Farm. — Pennsylvania : S. Fisher, Making of Pennsylvania ; 
H. Jenkins, Pennsylvania; I. Sharpless, Two Centuries of Penn- 
sylvania, and Quaker Government ; A. Myers, Irish Quakers; O. 
Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements ; J. Sachse, Pennsylvania 
Germans, and German Pietists; Scharf and Westcott, Philadelphia. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Josselyn, Two Voyages (1675); 
Dankers Sluyter, Voyage to New York (1679); Penn, Some Ac- 
count (1681); Budd, Good Order EstaUislied (16S5); Sewel, His- 
tory of Quakers (1722); Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania ; Gabriel 
Thomas, West Jersey. Reprints : Colonial Documents and Records 
of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; Half Moon Series; 
American History told by Contemporaries, I. part vi.; Jameson, 
Original Narratives ; publications by colonial and town record 
commissions, and historical and antiquarian societies. 



196 Middle Colonies, [Cn. IX. 

83. Dutch Settlement (1609-1625), 

In September, 1609, Hendrik Hudson, an English 
navigator in the employ of the Dutch East India Corn- 
Hudson's P^riy» sailed up the river to which his name 
discovery. ^^5 bggn giygn by the English — the Dutch 
called it North River — as far as the future site of Al- 
bany. He found " that the land was of the finest kind 
for tillage, and as beautiful as the foot of man ever trod 
upon." Six weeks earlier Champlain, the commander 
of New France, had been on the shores of Lake Cham- 
plain about one hundred miles to the north, fighting the 
native Iroquois. The object of Hudson's search was 
a familiar one in his time, — the discovery of a water- 
passage through the continent that might serve as a 
short-cut to India, where his masters were engaged in 
trade. He did not find what he sought, but opened the 
way to a lucrative traffic with the American savages, 
whose good graces the thrifty Dutch strove to cultivate. 
The French leader's introduction to the Iroquois had 
been as an enemy, but the explorer from Holland came 
as a friend : the Dutch reaped advantage from the 
contrast. 

Dutch traders annually visited the region of Hudson 
River during the next few 3^ears. There was at first no 
^ , ^ , attempt at colonization, for Holland just at 

EarlyDutch . , f. ^ j . • re 

trading- that time was not prepared to give offence 
posts. ^^ j^gj. q|(^ enemy, Spain, which claimed most 

of North America by the right of discovery and Pope 
Alexander's bull of partition. Nevertheless, the country 
was styled New Netherland, and Holland recognized 
it as a legal dependency. A Dutch navigator, Adrian 
Block, as the result of an accident, spent a winter on 
either Manhattan or Long Island, and built a coasting- 
vessel (161 4) for trafficking in furs. A small trading- 



1609-1623.] New Netherland. 197 

house, called Fort Nassau, was also erected this year 
on the site of Albany ; a similar establishment, with- 
out defences, and surrounded by a few huts for traders, 
was built on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the 
river, the following season (161 5); a new Fort Nassau 
was afterwards (1623) set up on the Delaware River, 
four miles below the site of Philadelphia, but was soon 
abandoned. 

In 1615 the New Netherland Company obtained a trad- 
ing charter from the States-General of Holland. The cor- 
Th N poration was granted a monopoly of the Dutch 

Netherlands fur traffic in New Netherland for three years, 
ompany. ^^^ Conducted extensive operations between 
Albany and the Delaware, coastwise and in the interior. 
The Dutch thus far had not ventured to exercise polit- 
ical control over the New Netherland. The country 
was still claimed by the English Virginia Company: 
The land originally granted to the Pilgrims from Leyden 
by the latter company was described as being " about the 
Hudson's River." We have seen how the party on the 
" Mayflower" were prevented by storms — or possibly by 
the design of the captain — from reaching their destina- 
tion and planting an English colony in the neighborhood 
of the Dutch trading posts. 

In 1621 the Dutch West India Company came upon 
the scene as the successor of the New Netherland Com- 
pany. Its charter bade it "to advance the 

The Dutch ^ \. ^ , r . r i j *^i j 4. « 

West India peophng of those fruitful and unsettled parts," 
Company. ^^^ ^^ u ^^ ^y^ ^l^^^ ^^^ Service of those coun- 
tries and the profit and increase of trade shail require." 
The corporation was given almost absolute commercial 
and political power in all Dutch domains between New- 
foundland and the Straits of Magellan, the home govern- 
ment reserving only the right to decline confirmation of 
colonial officers. Three years elapsed before the com- 



198 Middle Colonies. ^Ch. IX. 

pany attempted to plant a colony. Thirty families of 
Protestant Walloons — a people of mixed Gallic and Teu- 
tonic blood, living in the southern provinces of Holland, 
whose offer to settle in Virginia had been rejected by the 
English — were sent over by the Dutch proprietors (1624) 
to their new possessions. The greater part of the emi- 
grants went to Albany, which they styled Fort Orange ; 
others were sent to the Delaware River colony ; a small 
party went on to the Connecticut; a few settled on Long 
Island; and eight men stayed on Manhattan. These set- 
tlements, relying for their chief support on the fur-trade 
with the Indians, were quite successful, and the New 
Netherlands soon became an important group of com- 
mercial colonies. 

84^ iProgre3s within New Netherland (1626-1664). 

In 1626 Peter Minuit, then director for the company, 
purchased Manhattan from the Indians, united all the 
settlements under one system of direction, and 
ments " founded New Amsterdam (afterwards New 
united. York city) as the central trading depot. In 

every direction the trade of New Netherland grew. 

As the settlers seemed to be interested in commerce, 
and agricultural colonization did not flourish, the corpora- 
The patroon tion secured from the States-General a new 
system. charter of "freedoms and exemptions" (1629), 
which they thought better adapted to the fostering of 
emigration. This document sought to transplant the 
European feudal system to the American wilds. Mem- 
bers of the Dutch West India Company might purchase 
tracts of land from the Indians and plant colonies thereon, 
of which these proprietors were to be the patroons, or 
patrons. Each patroon thus establishing a colony of fifty 
persons upwards of fifteen years of age, was granted a 
tract "as a perpetual inheritance," sixteen miles wide 



j62 3-1 633-1 The Patroons. 199 

along the river, or eight miles on both sides, " and so 
tar into the country as the situation of the occupiers will 
permit." The company retained intervening lands ; but 
no one might settle within thirty miles of a patroon colony 
without consent of the patroon, subject to the order of the 
company's officials. The patroons were given political 
and judicial power over their colonists ; the latter might 
take appeals to the New Netherlands council, but the pa- 
troons were generally careful to bind the settlers before 
starting out not to exercise this right. 

Leading members of the company were quick to avail 
themselves of this opportunity to become members of a 
Patroon landed aristocracy and absolute chiefs of what- 

settlements. ever colonies they might plant. Small settle- 
ments were soon made on these several domains, which 
were taken up chiefly along Hudson River, the princi- 
pal highway into the Indian country. Van Rensselaer 
founded Rensselaerswyck, near Fort Orange ; Pauw se- 
cured Hoboken and Staten Island ; while Godyn, Blom- 
maert, De Vries, and others settled Swaanendael, on the 
Delaware. Many of the old patroon estates long remained 
undivided, and the heirs of the founders claimed some 
semi-feudal privileges well into the nineteenth century. 
Attempts to collect long arrears of rent on the great Van 
Rensselaer estate led to a serious anti-rent movement 
(1839-1846), which broke out in bloody riots and affected 
1 New York politics for several years. 

I The patroons, as individuals, haughtily assumed to shut 

out the Dutch West India Company, of which they were 

Collisions members, from the trade of their petty inde- 

with English pendent States. The corporation was not only 

, ^^ ^^^' torn by internal dissensions, but soon had on 

; hand a quarrel with New England because of the estab- 

; lishment of a Dutch fur-trading post at Hartford, on the 

» Connecticut (1633), and the vain assertion of a right to 



200 Middle Colonies. fCn. IX. 

exclude English vessels from the Hudson river. On the 
south, the Dutch came into collision with Virginians 
trading on the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Trade in- 
creased, but colonization did not thrive, owing in part 
to the rapacity of the patroons, and partly to the mis- 
management of the governors sent out to represent the 
company. 

The singular lack of tact displayed by Governor Kieft 
led to an Algonquian Indian uprising (1643-45), which 
An Indian resulted in the death of sixteen hundred sav- 
war. ages, but left the border settlements in ruins, 

and seriously checked colonial growth for several years. 
The Algonkins being enemies of the Iroquois, the 
friendship originally formed between the Dutch and the 
latter was not disturbed by this outbreak. 

In 1640 the company fixed the limits of a patroon's 

estate at one mile along the river front and two miles in 

depth, but did not disturb the feudal privi- 

Attempts to , . . • a i i 

roster coioni- Icgcs. As a counter-iniiuence, a new class of 
zation. settlers was provided for. Any one going to 

New Netherland with five other emigrants might take 
two hundred acres of land as a bounty and be indepen- 
dent of the patroons. A species of local self-government 
was also provided for at this time, the officers of each 
town or village being chosen by the directors of the 
company from a list made up by the inhabitants. These 
inducements do not seem to have attracted many colo- 
nists, for when Peter Stuyvesant came out as governor 
(1647), and strutted about Manhattan " like a peacock, 
— as if he were the Czar of Muscovy," there were only 
three hundred fighting men in the entire province. 

Up to this time the people had been obliged to rely 
chiefly on petitions as a means of presenting their political 
grievances. In 1641 Kieft had been forced by popular 
opinion to call a council of twelve deputies from the 



1633-1651.] New Sweden, 201 

several settlements to advise him in regard to treatment 
of the Indians, and again in 1644 to consult as to taxes ; 
The colo- ^"^ ^^ ^°^^ rough-shod over the deputies. The 
nists Strug- public outcry over this arbitrary conduct led to 
loiificaf his recall and the institution of some minor re- 
rights. forms. Under Stuyvesant there was formed a 

council of nine, the members being selected by him from 
a list of popular nominations. The board was so ar- 
ranged as to be self-perpetuating, and the people, after 
the original election, ceased to have any hand in its make- 
up. In an important struggle between Stuyvesant and 
the residents of New Amsterdam (1651) relative to an 
excise tax, the director-general was obliged to yield. 

A source of anxiety to the rulers of New Netherland 

was the heterogeneous character of the population. The 

first permanent settlers had been the Walloons. 

. neous pop- The Dutch themselves soon followed. Besides 
ulation. these were several bands of Protestant reform- 

' ers who had fled from persecution in Europe, and nu- 
merous sectaries from New England who had found life 
intolerable there. There were so many French-speaking 
people in the district that pubhc documents were often 
printed both in French and Dutch. In 1643 it was re- 
ported that eighteen languages were spoken in New 

; Amsterdam. 

The South Company of Sweden sent out a colony in 
1638 under charge of Minuit, formerly employed by the 

. ^ Dutch West India Company. He built Fort 

Encroach- _., .. , r . rtTr-i. 

mentsbythe Christma, ou the future site of Wilmington, 
Swedes. -Qgl^^ ^^^ called the country New Sweden. 
The Dutch governor at New Amsterdam vainly protested 
, against this occupation of territory claimed by his em- 
y ployers. Two years later (1641) a party of Englishmen 
I from New Haven built trading-houses on the Schuylkill, 
.and at Salem, N. J., near Fort Nassau, but were soon 



202 Middle Colonies. LCh. ix. 

compelled to leave. The Swedish enterprise went un- 
checked until Stuyvesant's rule, when a fort was built 
(1651) on the site of Newcastle, Del., below the Swedish 
fort; and four years after this (1655) the South Com- 
pany was obliged, upon display of force, to abandon its 
enterprise. 

85. Conquest of Wew Netherlaud (1664). 

So long as a foreign nation and a formidable commer- 
cial rival held the geographical centre, the northern and 
English southern colonies of England were separated, 
interference, intercommunication was hampered, and in- 
ternational bounxiary disputes arose. Moreover, New 
Amsterdam had the best harbor on the coast, and the 
Hudson river was an easy highway for traffic with the 
Indians ; it was, as well, altogether too convenient for 
possible raids of French and Indians from the north. 
For these reasons England was desirous of obtaining 
possession of the New Netherlands- There were not 
wanting excuses for interference. Englishmen in Con- 
necticut, on Long Island, and on the Schuylkill had had 
land disputes with the Dutch, and there had been much 
bad temper displayed on both sides. 

In 1654 Cromwell sent out a fleet to take the country; 
but peace between England and Holland intervened in 
time to give to New Netherland a respite of 
captures ten years. In 1664 Charles II. revived the 
Nether- claim that Englishmen had discovered the 
lands. region before the Dutch- In August of that 

year Colonel Nicolls appeared before New Amsterdam, 
then a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, with a fleet 
of four ships, having on board four hundred and fifty 
English soldiers and Connecticut volunteers, and de- 
manded its surrender. There was a stone fort and 
twenty cannon; but the enemy were too strong to be 



1654-1664.] TJie Efiglisk Conquest, 203 

profitably resisted. Despite Stuyvesant's protest, *' I 
would rather be carried to my grave" than yield, the 
white flag was eagerly run up by the frightened town 
officers, and Dutch rule in New Amsterdam came to an 
end. 

By October every possession of Holland in North 

America was in the hands of the Enghsh, who now held 

the Atlantic coast from the Savannah to the 

Importance 

of the con- Kennebec The achievement of Nicolls had 
'^""'' rendered it possible for the American colonies 

to unite, and thus was of the greatest importance to the 
poHtical development of the country. Had King Charles 
been able to foresee the trend of events, he would no 
doubt have been glad to allow the Dutch to stand as an 
obstacle to the union of his transatlantic possessions. 

The Duke of York was made proprietor of the con- 
quered territory, the province and capital being now 
^ . styled New York ; Fort Orange was rechris- 

Introduction , » „ -r! , , , , 

of English tcned Albany. But beyond the change of 
^^' names, little was done to interrupt the smooth 

current of life, and Dutch customs in household and 
trade were retained so far as practicable ; while the pub- 
lic offices were impartially shared, and former Dutch 
officials were consulted. There was one notable act of 
injustice : all land-grants had to be confirmed by the 
new governor, Nicolls, and fees were exacted for this 
service. Under English rule the prosperity of the 
colony greatly increased. 

86. Development of New York (1664-1700). 

The methods of local self-government were quietly 
transformed. Under the Dutch, the towns, manors, and 
Local gov- villages held direct relations with the West 
ernment. India Company. A systematic code drawn 
by Nicolls and a convention of the settlers (1665) — 



204 Middle Colonies. [Ch. ix 

promulgated as " the duke's laws " — provided for town- 
meetings for the election in each town by a " plurality of 
the voices of the freeholders," of a constable and eight 
overseers. These officers were the governing board of 
the town, with judicial and legislative powers, thus differ- 
ing from the New England selectmen, who but carried 
out the mandates of the town-meeting. There was cre- 
ated a judicial district called a " riding," with an area em- 
bracing several towns and presided over by a sheriff. In 
1683, these ridings developed into counties ; afterwards 
(1703), it was arranged that a supervisor was to be elected 
by the freeholders in each town, to represent it in a 
county board whose duties were chiefly to levy, collect 
and apportion taxes. Thus' we see the genesis in the 
middle colonies of the mixed system of local government, 
— town and county being of equal importance, with elec- 
tive executive officers in each : it was a compromise be- 
tween the town system of New England and the county 
system of Virginia ; and this mixed system now prevails 
in perhaps most of the States of the Union. The duke's 
charter enabled him to make all laws, without asking the 
advice or assistance of the freemen. By " the duke's 
laws," power was vested in the hands of the governor 
and council, the people being wholly ignored in all mat- 
ters above the affairs of the riding. Perfect religious 
liberty was allowed throughout the province. 

In 1672 England and Holland were again at war, and 
Francis Lovelace, then governor of New York, made 
„ such preparations as he could against antici- 

by the pated attack. The Dutch colonists had had 

more or less trouble about taxes with the Eng- 
lish authorities, and there had been some friction because 
the duke had made grants to Carteret and Berkeley in 
what afterwards by the release became New Jersey, and 
thus had still further complicated land-titles ; but in gen- 



2665-1688.1 Aiidros ill New York. 205 

eral the English rule had been borne with comparative 
equanimity. Nevertheless, the Dutch were highly de- 
lighted when a fleet from Holland appeared before the 
city (1673), and easily secured the surrender of the 
place. 

Fifteen months later (1674) the treaty of Westminster 
land ceded the province back to England, and it 
again in bccamc New York once more. The popula- 
possession. ^.^^ ^^ ^j^.^ \\tc\q. was about seven thousand. 

Edmund Andros, later concerned in the attempt to re- 
duce New England (page 174), now came out as governor. 
The rule of His domestic policy was wise, and the prov- 
Andros. jnce experienced a healthy growth, the fur- 
trade being greatly expanded under his administration. 
Both Nicolls and Andros sought to neutrahze the ill 
effects of the New Jersey grants by contending that they 
were still tributary to New York, and Andros, in particu- 
lar, adopted aggressive measures to maintain what he 
held to be his prerogative ; but Carteret and Berkeley 
were too influential at court, and the governor was re- 
called (1680) and given other employment. 

Under Gov. Thomas Dongan (i 683-1 688) the govern- 
ment yielded to the clamor of the people, who pointed 
Charter of to the greater freedom allowed the New Eng- 
hberties. landers; and an assembly was formed com- 
posed of eighteen deputies elected by the freeholders. 
A charter of liberties was adopted by this body, with the 
king's consent, making the assembly co-ordinate with the 
" governor and council ; freeholders and freemen of cor- 
porations were invested with the franchise ; religious 
toleration was ordained for all Christians ; taxes were 
' not to be levied without the assembly's sanction : but 'all 
^ laws were to require the assent of the duke, who was 
^ also to grant lands and establish custom-houses. This 

h liberal treatment was of short duration. The Duke of 

« 



2o6 Middle Colonies. [Ch. IX. 

York came to the throne in 1685 as James II., and his 
reign was signalized by depriving his subjects in New 
York of their representative government (1686). The 
governor and council were ordered to establish the Church 
of England in the province, and to refuse permits to 
schools not licensed by the Church. 

In 1688 New York was annexed to New England 
under the rule of Andros, who was represented in New 
Leisier's York by a deputy, Francis Nicholson. Later 
revolution, j^ ^^ yg^r news came of the Revolution in 
England. Jacob Leisler, an energetic but uneducated 
German shopkeeper, who had come out as a soldier in 
the West India Company's employ, headed the mihtia 
in driving Nicholson out and proclaiming the Prince of 
Orange. Leisler assumed the government ; but his rule 
was rash and arbitrary, although there is no doubt of 
his patriotic spirit, and soon there arose a demand from 
the conservative element for his withdrawal. By various 
subterfuges, however, he retained office for three years. 
His term was distinguished by his issuance of a call 
for the first Colonial Congress held in America ; it met 
at Albany, February, 1690, with seven delegates, chiefly 
from New England, and sought to organize a retaliatory 
raid against the French and their Algonquian aUies, 
who had recently swept Schenectady with fire and toma- 
hawk. The following year (1691) Leisler was forced to 
surrender to the royal governor, Col. Henry Sloughter, 
■who soon after, while intoxicated, was induced by Leisier's 
enemies to sign the death-warrant of his predecessor. 

A representative assembly was called, which annulled 
Leisier's proceedings and formulated a code similar to 
^ . the earlier charter of hberties. Gov. Benja- 

years of the min Fletcher (1692-1 698) was notoriously cor- 
century. xM^t. He levied blackmail on the pirates and 
smugglers who swarmed ia the harbors, and intrigued for 



1688-1701.] Reorganisation of New York. 207 

mone}' with members of the assembly ; but in his deal- 
ings with the hostile French and Indians he was firm 
and successful. In 169S the Earl of Bellomont was ap- 
pointed governor, and New York, New Jersey, Massa- 
chusetts, and New Hampshire were jointly placed under 
his rule. In New York he restored order, reduced 
crime, and rooted out corruption and piracy, so that 
when he died (1701), his loss was sincerely regretted. 

New York had gone through a development which 
down to the end of the eighteenth century marked the 
Character- colony out from her sisters. No other colony 
^ticsofNew had a history of any importance before the 
English domination ; in no other colony were a. 
foreign race and a foreign language and customs so in- 
trenched. No colony had such an experience of control 
from England. The history of New York up to 1700 is 
chiefly a history of administrations. The commercial 
pre-eminence of New York was hardly shown in colonial 
times. Its chief importance among the colonies arose 
out of the relations with the Iroquois. 

87. Delaware (1623-1700). 

We have seen that the Dutch West India Company 
established (1623) a trading post, called Fort Nassau, 
Early Dutch on the banks of the Delaware River within 
settlers. ^^xQ present town of Gloucester, N. J., and 
four miles below the future site of Philadelphia. The 
settlers were a portion of the party of Walloons sent out 
to America in that year. Eight years later (1631), De 
Vries, Blommaert, and other patroons (page 199) of New 
Netherlands founded Swaanendael, near the site of 
Lewes, Del. ; but a quarrel soon arose between the new 
settlers and the Indians, resulting in the complete mas- 
sacre of the Swaanendael colonists and the driving away 
cf the garrison at Fort Nassau. In 1635 the patroons 



2o8 Middle Colonies. [Ch. ix. 

owning lands on both shores of Delaware Bay and River 
sold their possessions to the Dutch West India Company, 
and a small garrison was sent by the latter to re-occupy 
Fort Nassau. A party of Englishmen from New Haven 
attempted that year to settle in the district, but were 
taken to New Amsterdam as prisoners. 

A third nation now appeared upon the scene as a 
competitor for the Delaware country. The South Com- 
pany of Sweden — which purposed trading in 
Company of Asia, Africa, and America, but especially in 
Sweden. ^^ j^^j — -^^^ \)Q.Qn chartered in 1624, under 
the auspices of the enterprising and ambitious Gustavus 
Adolphus, by Willem Usselinx, an Amsterdam merchant, 
founder of the Dutch West India Company. Usselinx 
had become embittered against the Dutch company, 
which pursued a narrow and exclusive policy ; and with 
him in this new enterprise were associated several who 
had been formerly connected with the Dutch corporation. 
Among these were Samuel Blommaert, one of the chief 
patroons in the Delaware region, and Peter Minuit, a 
Walloon, once governor at New Amsterdam. Minuit led 
the first Swedish trading colony to the Delaware River 
(1638), and erected Fort Christina on the future site of 
Wilmington, Del. 

The governor at New Amsterdam, Kieft, protested 
loudly against this invasion of soil claimed by the Dutch, 
although it was clearly within the grant al- 
on the Deia- ready made to Lord Baltimore by the English, 
^^^^' who probably had as good right in the district 

as the Dutch. The latter had indeed for a time allowed 
it to revert to the Indians, after their first colonizing 
attempt. Kieft rebuilt Fort Nassau, a menace to which 
the Swedes replied by fortifying the island of Tinicum, 
six miles below the mouth of the Schuylkill, thus plant- 
ing the first colony in Pennsylvania as well as in Dela- 



1635-1656.] New Sweden. 209 

ware. In 1643 this island became the seat of Swedish 
government. 

New Sweden prospered. The settlers were industri' 
ous, thrifty, intellio^ent, and contented. Alone 

Prosperity ,' r -^ ^ ^- ^ ^ 

of New the shores of Delaware River and Bay were 

Sweden. scattered neat hamlets, and the company's fur- 
trade was extended far into the interior. 

In 1641 two English settlements were made on the 
river by New Haven men ; but there was good reason to 
Swedish ag- distrust the new-comers, who belonged to a 
gressiveness ]and-hungry race, and Dutch and Swedes 
united to drive them out. Possibly the Swedes might 
have finally settled down into friendly neighborhood re- 
lations with the Dutch, had not the Swedish governor 
John Printz, adopted an aggressive attitude towards the 
New Netherlanders. This led to reprisals. Stuyvesant, 
who succeeded Kieft at New Amsterdam, built Fort 
Casimir, near the present city of Newcasde, Del., below 
the Swedish forts (1651), and thus endeavored to cut 
them off from ocean communication. In 1654 a Swedish 
war-vessel anchored before Casimir, which 
fall of New was quietly surrendered. The next year (1655) 
Sweden. Stuyvesant raised an army of six or seven 
hundred men, which suddenly appeared on the Delaware, 
overawed the Swedes, and compelled them to abandon 
control of the region. Thus New Sweden fell, amid a 
storm of protest, but without bloodshed. 

Part of the Delaware country was sold by the Dutch 
West India Company to the city of Amsterdam (1656). 
The Dutch The officers sent out by the municipality were 
domination, ^s a rule inefficient, and the colony declined ; 
bad crops, famine, disease, Indian troubles, quarrels 
with New Netherland, and boundary difficulties with 
the English in Maryland, being additional reasons for 
retrogression. 

14 



2IO Middle Coloriies. [Ch. IX. 

The city had just acquired the whole of the Delaware 
River region, when the English took possession (1664), 
English rule ^i^d Amsterdam rule was succeeded by that of 
established, the Duke of York, with laws similar to those 
in vogue elsewhere in ]]is province. There were a few 
outbreaks, but as a rule both Dutch and Swedes pros- 
pered under English domination. 

The district was for some time the object of contention 

by rival English claimants. Maryland and New Jersey 

both wanted it, but Penn finally secured a 

Annexed to ^ , ^ /r, -. • i • 

Pennsyl- grant of the country (16S2), to give ms, prov- 
vama, jj^^^ ^^ Pennsylvania an outlet to the sea. 

Delaware, now known as " the territories," " lower coun- 
ties," or "Delaware hundreds" of Pennsylvania, was 
for many years the source of much anxiety to its Quaker 
proprietor, for political jealousy of the "province," or 
Pennsylvania proper, gave rise to much popular discon- 
tent. In 1 691 the "territories" were granted a separate 
assembly and a deputy-governor. But the " territories" 
and the " province " were reunited under Fletcher's tem- 
porary rule (1693), and so remained until 1703, when 
Delaware was recognized as a separate colony, with an 
assembly of its own, although under the same governor- 
ship as Pennsylvania. 

The separate existence of Delaware was almost an 
accident. The colony was unjustly cut out of 
istiS of^ the Maryland grant, and was little more than 
Delaware. ^ g^j.jp ^long Chesapeake Bay. It remained, 
down to the Revolution the smallest and least important 
of all the colonies. 

88. New Jersey (1664-1738). 

We have already noticed the erection of Fort Nassau 
by the Dutch, and the struggle over the possession of the 
banks of Delaware River and Bay between the Dutch, 



" 1664-166S,] Delaware and New Jersey. 21 r 

the Swedes, and the English. When the Duke of York 
: came into possession of the country (1664), he granted 
the lands between the Delaware and the Hud- 
j atldCa^r- son to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, 
teret's grant, ^nder the name of New Jersey; this title was 
in compliment to Carteret, who had been governor of the 
. island of Jersey and bravely held it for Charles II. dur- 
ing the Great Rebellion. New Jersey had a hundred 
and twenty miles of sea-coast; it was as yet sparsely 
^ settled ; it had a fixed natural boundary on the west ; 
.and it was considered a particularly desirable seat for 
colonization. 

J The new proprietors agreed upon a plan of government 
, by which the administration of affairs was placed in the 
. , .. , , hands of a governor, council, and representa- 

- Liberal plan . , ° . , , , \ 

-of govern- tive assembly, as in the other colonies; the 
^meiit. proprietors reserved the right to annul laws 

and to control the official appointments. There was to 
J be religious liberty to all "who do not actually disturb 
, the civil peace of said province;" and all who were 
subjects of the king and swore fealty to him " and faith- 
fulness to the lords, shall be admitted to plant and be- 
come freemen." 

^ Philip Carteret, a nephew of Sir George, came out 
^ (1665) as governor, and with him a body of English emi- 
grants, who founded the town of Elizabeth. 

A body of ^, ' , . , i . t, 

laws There were already on the ground, at Bergen, 

I framed. ^ number of Dutch and Swedes, while at 

Shrewsbury were several English sectaries, exiles from 

Connecticut and Long Island, who had purchased land 

from the Indians. Other Nev/ Englanders settled Mid- 

dletown and Newark in 1666. Soon after the arrival of 

I Carteret, several more companies came out to New Jer- 

_ sey from the Eastern colonies, together with a plentiful 

sprinkling of Scotch. In May, 1668, deputies from each 



212 Middle Colonies. [Ch. IX- 

of the towns met at Elizabeth to frame a body of laws 
for the colony. The Puritan element strongly influenced 
the code, particularly in the penalties for crime, which 
were remarkable for their severity. 

Throughout 1672 there was much turbulence, owing to 
disputes about quit-rents between the inhabitants and 
The Quaker ^^e proprietors. Berkeley was by this time 
purchase. thoroughly dissatisfied, and sold his undivided 
moiety of the province for a thousand pounds to a party 
of Quakers who desired to found a retreat for their sect; 
nine tenths of this purchase soon (1674) fell into the 
hands of WiUiam Penn and other Friends who were as- 
sociated with him. Two years later (1676) the Penn 
party purchased the remainder of the Quaker interest. 

In 1673 the Dutch recaptured the district. When 
they were obliged by treaty (1674) to give it back to the 
The Jerseys English, Charles II. and the Duke of York 
divided. reaffirmed Sir George Carteret's claim in New 
Jersey. The new charter for the first time made a divi- 
sion of the country, giving Carteret the eastern part, — 
much more than one half, — and leaving the rest to the 
Quaker proprietors. In 1676, Carteret and the Quakers 
agreed upon a boundary line, running from Little Egg 
Harbor northwest to the Delaware, at 41° 40'. 

In West New Jersey the Quakers set up a liberal 
government, in which the chief features were religious 
West New toleration, a representative assembly, and an 
Jersey. executive council, whose members — "ten 

honest and able men fit for government" — were to be 
elected by the assembly. As a proprietary body, the 
framers of these "concessions and agreements" re- 
tained no authority for themselves ; they truly said, 
" We put the power in the people." To this refuge for 
the oppressed, four hundred Quakers came out from 
England in 1677. 



i668-i6S8.] The Jerseys. 213 

Sir George Carteret died in 16S0, and in 1682 Wil- 
liam Penn and twenty-four associates — among whom 
East New were several Scotch Presbyterians — pur- 
Jersey, chased East New Jersey from the Carteret 
heirs. A government was established similar to that 
In the western colony, except that the new proprietors 
and their deputies were to form the executive council. 
In neither colony were the public offices restricted to 
Quakers, and every Christian possessed the elective 
franchise. 

Both the Jerseys had made excellent progress ; but for 
several years there was difficulty with Andros (page 205), 
Trouble with ^^° claimed that the country was still the 
the Duke of property of the Duke of York and therefore 
within his jurisdiction, and who attempted to 
levy taxes. There was much bitterness over the dis- 
pute, in the course of which Andros displayed a despotic 
temper; but in the end the duke's claims were overruled 
by the EngHsh arbitrator. 

When the duke ascended the throne as James II., he 
had writs of quo warranto issued (1686) against the 
^, ^ Jersey governments on the ground of whole- 

The Crown ^ -^ & & 

takes posses- sale smuggling by the residents. Under this 
sion. pressure the patents were surrendered to the 

Crown (1688), so far as the government was concerned, 
but there was a proviso that the landed rights of the 
proprietors were to be undisturbed. Andros took the 
two colonies under his charge; thus he was now gov- 
ernor of all the country north and east of the Dela- 
ware, except New Hampshire. But though united to 
the northern colonies, the Jerseymen did not cease to 
assert their independence. Andros again attempted 
to levy taxes upon them, and they opposed him as 
stubbornly as ever, claiming that there could be no 
lawful taxation without representation. With the pro* 



214 Middle Colonies. [Ch. ix. 

prietors also they had ceaseless bickerings over the 
quit-rents. Affairs were in a feverish state until the 
former, tired of keeping up the profitless discussion, 
and now rent by dissensions in their councils, surren- 
dered all their claims to the Crown (1702). The poHcy 
of James was to unite the colonies, and bring them into 
greater dependence. 

New Jersey, at last reunited, was made a royal colony ; 
but until 1738, when given a governor of its own, it was 
Newjer- under the administration of the governor of 
sey's cordi- New York, who ruled through a deputy. The 

tionasa ^^ _ ., • j 1 i 

royal prov- Ncw Jersey council was appointed by the 
^^'^^' king, and there was a popularly elected repre- 

sentative assembly. All Christian sects were tolerated, 
but Roman Catholics were denied political privileges. 
There was a property qualification for suffrage, — the 
possession of two hundred acres of land, or other prop- 
erty worth ^50. The inhabitants were generally pros- 
perous. Their isolated geographical position secured 
them immunity from attacks by hostile Indians ; they 
had scrupulously purchased the lands from the native 
inhabitants, and with the few who were now left they 
maintained friendly relations. The new government 
brought them greater political security, and under it they 
thrived even better than before. 

The annals of New Jersey are like the population and 
political system, — confused and uninteresting. It was 
many years before a tradition of common in- 
isticsofNew terest could be established between East and 
Jersey. West Ncw Jersey. One of the most remarka- 

ble lessons in government furnished by the colony was a 
decision of the courts that an Act of the assembly was 
void because not in accordance with the frame of 
government. 



/676-1682.] Pennsylvania Founded. 215 



89. Pennsylvania (1681-1718). 

In 1676 William Penn, prominent among the English 
Quakers, became financially concerned, with others of 
Pgnj^.g his sect, in the colony of West New Jersey, 

charter. and thereby acquired an interest in American 

colonization. His father, an admiral in the English navy, 
had left him (1670) a claim against the government for 
sixteen thousand pounds ; in lieu of this he induced 
Charles II. (1681) to give him a proprietary charter of 
forty thousand square miles in America. The king 
called the region Pennsylvania, in honor of the admiral, 
but against the protest of the grantee, who " feared lest 
it be looked on as vanity in me." 

Penn at once widely advertised his dominions. He 
offered to sell one hundred acres of land for £1, subject 
Hiscoloiiiza- to a small quit-rent, and even servants might 
tion scheme, acquire half this amount. He proposed to 
establish a popular government, based on the principle 
of exact justice to all, red and white, regardless of re- 
ligious beliefs; there was to be trial by jury; murder 
and treason were to be the only capital crimes ; and 
punishment for other offences was to have reformation, 
not retaliation, in view. By the terms of the charter 
Penn was, in conjunction with and by the consent of 
the free-men, to make all necessary laws. The pro- 
posals of the new proprietor were received with enthu- 
siasm among the people of his religious faith throughout 
England. 

In October three ship-loads of Quaker emigrants were 
sent out, and a year later (1682) Penn himself followed, 
with a hundred fellow-passengers. At the time of his 
arrival the Dutch had a church at Newcastle, Del., 
which was within his grant, the Swedes had churches 
at Christina, Tinicum, and Wicacoa, and Quaker meet- 



2i6 Middle Colonies, [Ch. xi 

ing-houses were established at Chester, Shakamaxon, 
and near the lower falls of the Delaware. 

The constitution drawn up by Penn for his colony 
provided that the proprietor was to choose the governor, 
Constitution t)ut the people were to elect the members of 
and laws. t}^^ couHcil, and also deputies to a representa- 
tive assembly ; it was practically the West New Jersey 
plan. The laws decided upon by the first assembly, 
convened by the proprietor soon after his arrival, were 
beneficent. They included provisions for the humane 
treatment of Indians ; for the teaching of a trade to eacli 
child; for the useful employment of criminals in prisons ; 
for religious toleration, with the qualification that all pub- 
lic officers must be professing Christians, and private 
citizens believers in God. The principles set forth in 
Penn's original announcement were thus given the sanc- 
tion of law. 

A distinction was made between the original Pennsyl- 
vania, as granted by the king to Penn, and the territory 
Relations afterwards known as Delaware, which the 
between the latter had obtained in a special grant from the 
n§s " and Duke of York, — the royal grant being known 
the province ^g « ^j^g province," and the purchase from 
the duke as "the territories,-' of Pennsylvania. In the 
province three counties were established, and in the 
territories three more. These counties were given pop- 
ularly elected governing boards, and were made the unit 
of representation in the assembly; the towns were merely 
administrative subdivisions of the counties, without any 
form of local government. 

Penn was eminently successful in treating with the 
Relations Indians in his neighborhood. Circumstances 
with the favored him greatly in this regard, but never- 
theless much was due to his shrewd diplomacy 
and humane spirit ; and for a long period the Quaker 



.1684-1750] Disquiet in Pennsylvafiia, 217 

' district of Pennsylvania was exempt from the border 
warfare which harassed most of the other colonies. 
1 Obliged to return to England in 1684, Penn did not 
: again visit his American possessions until fifteen years 
Political had elapsed, and then but for a brief time 
_ turbulence. (1699-1701). This intervening period was 
: one of continuous political disquiet for the proprietor 
, and the colonists alike, despite the fact that the mate- 
rial condition of the people — Quakers, Swedes, Dutch, 
: Germans, and Welsh alike — continued to improve. A 
: boundary dispute with Maryland required the interven- 
rtionofthe English government (1685) as an arbitrator; 
J during two years (1692-1694), Penn was dispossessed of 
:his colony by the Crown ; and the turbulent "territories" 
J gave him so much trouble that he sought peace by erect- 
aing them into the separate colony of Delaware in 1703. 

Dissensions, however, did not cease either in the 
r provinces or in Delaware. Penn died in 1718, leaving to 
-his heirs a legacy of petty but harassing disputes which 
blasted until the Revolution. 

T Planted as Pennsylvania was, half a century after the 
earlier Southern and New England colonies, and aided 
iby rich men and court favorites, its progress was rapid 
jiand its prosperity assured from the beginning. The pa- 
^Characteris- ^'^^ policy of Penn towards the Indians saved 
-tics of Penn- his colony from the expense and danger of, 
frontier wars. Nevertheless from the begin- 
jlning the colony showed the same indisposition to sub- 
rmit to the control of proprietors that had so disturbed 
Maryland and the Carolinas. Notwithstanding, Penn- 
sylvania shortly became the most considerable of the 
middle colonies, and eventually equalled Virginia and 
-M^issachusetts in importance. 



2l8 Middle Colonies, [Ch. x. 



CHAPTER X. 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE 
MIDDLE COLONIES IN 1700. 



90. References. 

Bibliographies. — Same as § 82, above. 

Historical Maps. — Same as § 82, above. 

General Accounts. — Doyle, Colonies, IV, ; Lodge, Colonies, 
chs. xiii., XV., xvii.; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, chs. xviii., 
xix. See also histories of separate colonies, § 82, above. 

Special Histories. — Topography: Semple, American His- 
tory and its Geographic Conditions, chs. i.-iv. ; Roberts, New York, 
I. ch. viii.; Scharf, Delaware, ch. i. — Manners and Customs: 
Fisher, Men, Women, attd Manners in Colonial Times, I. chs. vi., 
vii., II. ch. viii.; Wilson, Rambles in Colonial Byways; Earle, 
Colonial Days in Old New York; C. Hemstreet, When Old New 
York was Young; T. Janvier, Old New York; E. Singleton, 
Dutch New York; J. Van Rensselaer, Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta; 
A. Gummere, The Quaker: a Study in Costume; novels by 
S. W. Mitchell. — Industries : Bishop, History of American Manu- 
factures. — Slavery: J. Brackett, Negro in Maryland. See also 
§ 82, above, and biographies of prominent men. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Same as § B>2, above. 

91. Geographical Conditions in the Middle Colonies. 

The middle section of the Atlantic plain in the United 
States is distinguished by three deep indentations, — 
Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York bays : 
eograp y. ^^^^ ^^ these IS the expanded mouth of a com- 
prehensive river system, and furnishes abundant anchor- 
age, — New York bay being the finest harbor on the 
continent. Along the coast south of New York is a 
low, level base-plain of sand and clay, from twenty-five to 



C H . X . I Geography. 2 1 g 

fifty miles in width, the larger towns being generally 
situated on the uplands beyond. The Appalachian 
mountains extend in several ridges across the middle 
district from southwest to northeast, the highest eleva- 
tions being those of the Catskill group in southeastern 
New York, where Slide Mountain towers 4,205 feet above 
sea-level. New Jersey is largely occupied by the base- 
plain, with hills in the northwest. From the eastern 
range of mountains, the surface of New York slopes 
gently down, with great diversity, to Lake Ontario ; the 
mountains are rent by the interesting and important 
water-gap of the Mohawk valley, which in an earlier geo- 
j logical age connected the lake basin with the trough of 
. the Hudson. Pennsylvania has three distinct topograph- 
ical divisions : (i) the highly fertile district between the 
\ Blue Mountains and the sea, — including Delaware; (2) 
, the middle belt of elevated valleys, separated by low par- 
-1 allel ridges of mountains rich in anthracite coal and iron 
T ore ; (3) the upland north and west of the mountain walls, 
\ sloping down to the tributaries of the Ohio with a wealth 

of bituminous coal, oil, and natural gas. 
: In the New York and Pennsylvania hills the numerous 
* rivers of the region have their rise. These rivers either 
i • Interming- ^^^ westward into the Mississippi basin, north- 
ling river- ward into the Great Lakes, eastward into the 
'"^" deep cleft cut through the mountains by the 
i Hudson, or southward into the estuaries of the Delaware 
; and Chesapeake. Within a short distance of each other 
[ are waters which will reach the Atlantic ocean by three 
r divergent routes, — through the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf 
r of St. Lawrence, and the bays we have mentioned. This 
!' fact has had a potent influence on the course of American 
^ settlement and trade, which have persistently followed 
' the water highways into the interior of the continent; and 
along those rivers were fought two great wars. 



220 Middle Colonies. JCh. X 

The ease with which the French and English in 
America could approach each other, along the almost 
Their his- continuous water-route formed by Hudson 
torical sig- River and Lake Champlain and their tribu- 
taries, made this central region the theatre of a 
protracted and desperate struggle throughout the French 
and Indian war; while we shall see that during the Revo- 
lution the Hudson was regarded as the key to the mili- 
tary situation. It has already been remarked (page 202) 
how important the English government deemed the 
possession of the Hudson, in 1664, as a means to the 
unification of the Anglo-American empire. Through its 
Mohawk arm, waters running into the Great Lakes could 
be readily reached. 

The soil in the middle district, back from the sandy 
coast-belt, is for the most part fertile. Originally the 
Soil and entire country was densely wooded, even to 
chmate. \]^^ summits of the mountains, which nowhere 

rise to the snow-line. The climate is, judged by the 
record of average temperature, an agreeable compromise 
between New England and the South ; although, as else- 
where on the Atlantic slope, it is subject to rapid and 
extreme variations. Penn wrote that the " weather often 
changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its 
inconstancy." 

92. People of the Middle Colonies. 

The population of the middle colonies was noted for its 
heterogeneous character. New York was first settled by 
Po ulation ^^^ Dutch, who ruled the district for fifty years, 
of New After the English conquest (1664), Dutch im- 
migration practically ceased; nevertheless in 
1700 a majority of the whites were Dutch, although the 
English, more of whom had emigrated from New Eng- 



Ch. X.] Population. 221 

\. land than from the parent isle, were widely spread and 

s politically dominant. There were in 1700 about twenty- 

I five thousand inhabitants, perhaps two thousand five 

- hundred being blacks. Besides the prevailing Dutch and 

English, there were many French Huguenots, a number 

of Palatine Germans who had fled from persecution at 

home, and a few Jews. The New York colonists chiefly 

dwelt on the islands and shores of New York bay, and 

the banks of the Hudson and Mohawk. Beyond this 

thin fringe of settlement, the forest wall was for the most 

part still unbroken. Agricultural development was as 

yet slow, but the fur-trade was spreading far into the 

interior. 

East Jersey had a population of about ten thousand, 
composed of Quakers, New England men, and Scotch 
of the Presbyterians. Of the four thousand inhabi- 

Jerseys. tants of West Jersey, the Quakers were the 
prevailing element. The population of New Jersey was 
homogeneous, being very largely English ; the few Dutch, 
Germans, and Swedes having little effect on the character 
of the colony. Jersey-men were vigorous and quick-witted, 
although Governor Belcher (i 748-1 757) wrote, " They are 
a very rustical people, and deficient in learning." 

Pennsylvania and Delaware had, together, a population 
of about twenty thousand in 1700, having developed more 
and of Penn- ^^pi^^^y ^"^"^ ^"^7 Other of the American colonies. 
syivania and Somewhat over OHC half were English Quak- 
e aware. ^^^^ ^^ Others being sectaries from New Eng- 
land, French, Dutch, Germans, Swedes, Finns, Welsh, 
and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The Germans moved 
in large numbers to what were then the western borders, 
where they evolved a distinct dialect, popularly known 
as " Pennsylvania Dutch." Although valuable pioneers 
of civilization, they exhibited a stubborn temper, which, 
with their strong opposition to the bearing of arms, made 



222 Middle Colonies. [Ch. x. 

them untrustworthy during the French and Indian wars. 
The rugged, liberty-loving Scotch-Irish were a later 
acquisition. The pure Irish, destined to become so 
prominent on the frontier, did not commence arriving 
until 1 719. The Swedes were strong, sturdy, and simple 
agriculturists. The English Quakers were of the middle 
class of tradesmen and small farmers. Their prejudice 
against taking up arms made it difficult for the colonial 
military officers to defend the province against the dis- 
astrous Indian forays of the eighteenth century, and was 
a fruitful source of political and social disturbance. 

By the close of the seventeenth century a people had 
grown up in most of the middle colonies which was 
largely English in composition, with habits of speech, 
thought, and manner greatly affected by English tradi- 
tions, but still much modified by the liberal infusion of 
blood from kindred nationalities on the continent of 
Europe. The eager, enterprising spirit of the English, 
quickened by removal to the New World, had, after a 
generation or two of amalgamation, been noticeably tem- 
pered by the phlegmatic temperament of the German, 
Dutch, and Scandinavian settlers. 

03. Social Classes. 

In the middle colonies, as in New England and the 
South, there existed an acknowledged aristocracy, al- 
though there was a wide gap between the 
haughty and elegant Dutch manor-chiefs in 
New York and the rude gentlemen farmers who headed 
New Jersey society. The servile classes common to the 
Southern colonies were also present here, as a foundation 
for aristocratic distinction ; but they were comparatively 
insignificant in number. Nowhere in this middle group 
was free white labor regarded as degrading; nearly all 



ch. X.] Social Classes and Slaves, 22^ 

the colonists were workers, whether behind the desk 
or the counter, in the shop or in the field. Trade was 
exalted to a high station. 

New York had many negroes, left over from the 
Dutch rule, but there was a strong physical prejudice 
against them, and their further importation 
^^^'^^' was gradually restricted. In 171 1 and 1741, 
on insufficient evidence, the blacks were accused of plots 
against the whites of New York city, and were cruelly 
dealt with, — on the former occasion nineteen were 
hanged; on the latter, eighteen suffered death by the 
gallows, and thirteen were burned at the stake. The laws 
against negroes were harsh in all of the middle colonies. 
But in practice, slaves were mildly treated, compared 
with those in the South. The Quakers were opposed to 
human bondage on principle, yet many employed slaves, 
chiefly as house-servants. There were numerous in- 
dented servants, especially in Pennsylvania, and most 
stringent laws were adopted for their regulation. From 
these and the negroes the criminal class was recruited. 
Among Pennsylvania Quakers were formed the first abo- 
lition societies. 

No aristocrats in America so nearly resembled the 
nobility of the Old World as the great-landed Dutch 
The Dutch proprietors in New York, — such as the Van 
aristocrats. Rensselaers, the Cortlandts, and the Living- 
stons. Their vast estates up the Hudson, granted to 
their fathers in the days of the Dutch West India Com- 
pany, were rented out to tenant-farmers, over whom they 
ruled in princely fashion, dispensing justice, and bounti- 
fully feasting the tenants on semi-annual rent-days. Some 
of these estates were entitled to representatives in the 
assembly, and the lords of the manor practically held 
such appointments in their keeping. There was an im- 
passable gulf between the rural aristocrats and the small 



224 Middle Colonies. [Ch. x. 

freeholders and tradesmen. This condition of affairs 
was not calculated to encourage settlement; and out of 
these feudal privileges, often harshly exercised, there 
arose conflicts which became riotous as the Revolution 
approached. 

The aristocrats of Pennsylvania and Delaware were 
also the wealthy landed gentry, chiefly Penn's followers; 
, . but the class was not strongly marked, and 

Aristocracy . ., , r ^ ^ • i 

among the almost imperceptibly faded away into the 
•Quakers. ranks of the merchants and small freeholders. 
:Each village, however, had its Quaker " squire " or magis- 
trate, in powdered wig, broad ruffles, cocked hat, and 
gold-headed cane, who meted out justice at the neigh- 
boring tavern and was highly regarded. Rich and poor 
alike, among the Quakers, were simple in tastes and hab- 
its. In New Jersey there was a mild recognition of the 
social superiority of the gentlemen farmers, notwith- 
standing a strong underlying spirit of democracy ; a rude 
plenty prevailed, and the gentlemen's houses were not 
without some degree of elegance. 

94. Occupations. 

The judicial system was very similar to that which 
obtained elsewhere in America. In each province was 
Theprofes- ^^ upper court, Consisting of a chief justice 
sions. and associates, appointed by the governor; 

from this an appeal might go in important cases to the 
governor and council, and in causes involving ;!^2oo or 
over, to the king in council. Below the upper court 
was a regular series of courts, ranging down to the local 
justices of the peace. Justice was cheap, and court 
practice simple. In New York, the quality of both 
bench and bar was inferior, and remained so down to the 
Revolution ; the judges had often no legal training, and 



Ch, X.] Occupations. 225 

the law was not recognized as a profession. In Dela- 
ware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania men of ability and 
character were engaged on the bench and at the bar, 
and their calling won universal respect. Penn brought 
out two physicians with him, and in the Quaker colonies 
the art of medicine had from the first an honorable 
standing; but in New York physicians were not licensed 
until 1760. In all four colonies the clergymen for the 
most part were zealous, upright men, of learning and 
ability, and took high social rank. 

Except in New York, where trade was equally impor- 
tant, agriculture was the chief industry ; but as the soil 
A riculture ^^^ fertile and the average farmer conse- 
and manu- quently careless, farming was, except among 
ac unng. ^^^ painstaking Quakers of Pennsylvania, in 
a low condition. The principal crop was wheat, although 
there was much variety in farm products, and New Jer- 
sey raised large herds of cattle on her broad lowland 
meadows. There were many small manufactures for 
domestic use, the most important being among the 
Germans of Germantown, who made, in a small way, 
paper and glass, and also some varieties of knit goods 
and coarse cloths; the spinning-wheel was a familiar 
household machine, for homespun was much worn by all 
except the rich. But the bulk of manufactured goods 
was imported from England and the continent of Europe, 
Little picturesque windmills, with broad canvas sails, 
after the Dutch fashion, were numerous. Many of the 
Maryland and Virginia colonists came long distances to 
patronize the Pennsylvania mills. It was not until 1720 
than an iron furnace was erected in the latter province, 
— the first in the middle group of colonies. 

The middle-colony people had a keen sense for trade. 
The fur-traffic was widespread and of the first im- 
portance, particularly in New York and Pennsylvania; 



226 Middle Colonies. [Ch. x. 

while the personal danger to the adventurous forest 
trader was very great, the profits on packs of peltries 
Trade and Successfully landed in New York and Phila- 
commerce. delphia were such as to warrant the hazard. 
The principal exports were grain, flour, and furs, and 
vessels with these American products sailed to England, 
Lisbon, Madeira, and the West Indies ; the exports of 
goods were never equal to the imports, however, and 
ships bringing over wines, sugar, and miscellaneous man- 
ufactured articles often found it difficult to obtain return 
cargoes. There was a profitable 'long-shore commerce 
in farm products and small manufactures, boats pene- 
trating up the rivers far inland. New England bottoms 
were largely employed, although a shipbuilding industry 
«oon sprang up at Philadelphia. New York was the 
chief port of the middle colonies for foreign trade ; her 
merchants were highly active and prosperous. 

95. Social Life. 

In 1700 the Dutch were still the largest landowners in 

INew York. The English and other nationalities, jealously 

Life and cxcluv !ed from the landed class as far as pos- 

snanners in sible, wcrc to be mainly found in the large 

I'J'cw York 

towns in the southern portion of the province, 
engaged in trade. The Dutch adhered to old dress and 
customs with remarkable tenacity. Their farm-houses 
were usually of wood, with the second story overhanging ; 
the great rafters showed in the ceilings; the fireplaces 
were ornamented with pictured tiles, and above were rows 
of great wooden and pewter dishes, and racks of long 
tobacco-pipes ; the floors were daily scrubbed and sanded, 
and evidences of neatness and thrift were distinguishing 
features. In the little hamlets, as well as on the farms, 
there was plenty of good plain living; but the people, 
•while thrifty, sober, contented, and industrious, were 



Ch. X.] Social Life. 227 

superstitious, ignorant, grasping, and slow. Life with 
them was narrow and monotonous. The wealthy landed 
proprietors lived on their estates up the Hudson in sum- 
mer, and moved to New York city in winter ; their manor- 
houses were large and richly furnished, they had trains 
of servants, black and white, and maintained a degree of 
splendor scarcely equalled elsewhere in the colonies. 
The Dutch women, rich and poor, were noted for their 
excellence as housekeepers, their unaffected piety, and 
their love of flowers. 

In Pennsylvania and Delaware there was a wide dif- 
ference between the condition of the dwellers in the long- 
Els wher settled portions, where there was intelligent 
in the mid- progress, sobriety, and neatness, and that of 
the western borderers, who were a rude, tur- 
bulent people, living amid wretched economic and sani- 
tary conditions. The better class of farmers in the 
eastern section were prosperous but simple; men and 
women alike worked in the fields, and a patriarchal sys- 
tem of family life prevailed. The soberly attired Quak- 
ers still exercised a large influence on society, which was 
pervaded by a healthy moral tone ; tradesmen had a par- 
ticularly keen sense of business honesty. New Jersey 
was also a well-to-do colony ; but her farms and vil- 
lages long had the reputation of presenting an untidy 
appearance. 

Although life among the middle-colony folk was sober 
and filled with toil, there were the customary rough and 
Social in- simple popular diversions of the period, — 
tercourse. for the farmers corn-huskings, spinning-bees, 
house-raisings, and dancing-parties, at which hard drinking 
was not infrequent ; for the townsfolk horse-racing, bull- 
baiting, cock-fighting, tavern-parties, balls, and picnics. 
The people were, as a whole, of a more social tempera- 
ment than their New England neighbors. There was little 



228 Middle Colonies. [Ch. x. 

luxury within their reach, but they appear to have been as 
a rule satisfied in their condition, and above want. 

The principal town was New York. Society there was 
more gay than in Boston, and more fashionable than 
in any other American city, except perhaps 
Charleston. The wealthy landed proprietors 
spent money freely during the winter season, and the 
latest London styles were eagerly sought and followed. 
A social polish was aimed at, clubs were fostered, and 
pride was taken in the fact that no other American city 
was so cosmopolitan in tone, — a result of its being the 
centre of a far-reaching foreign trade. There was much 
that was English in New York, yet even here the Dutch 
influence was strong. Visitors speak of the wide, plea- 
sant streets lined with trees, the low brick and stone 
houses, with their projecting eaves and their gables to 
the street, — a fashion general in the colonies, — and 
the insignificant character of the few public buildings. 
Albany was the centre of the northern fur-trade, and 
purely Dutch in composition and architecture. 

Philadelphia was the Quaker capital. Laid out like a 
checker-board, with architecture of severe simplicity, its 
best residences were surrounded by gardens and orchards. 
The town was substantial, neat, and had the appearance 
of prosperity. Germantown, near by, settled by the Ger- 
mans (1683), was largely given over to small manufactures. 
Newcastle was ill-built and unattractive. The New Jer- 
sey towns were rather comely, but insignificant ; Trenton 
was chiefly supported by travellers along the great high- 
way between New York and Philadelphia. 

There was little intercommunication, except between 
the larger towns, and the facilities for travel were meagre. 
Roads and Rude farm-wagons, two-wheeled chaises, and 
travel. saddle-horses were the chief means of convey- 

ance over the rough, stony roads *, and on the many and 



Ch. X.] Town Life and Education. 229 

far-reaching rivers, travellers and traders proceeded lei- 
surely by slow-moving craft. New Jersey was traversed 
by the highways between New York and Philadelphia, 
over which post-boys rode weekly with the mail in saddle- 
bags. Taverns were in every town in New York and 
Pennsylvania, and were favorite meeting-places for the 
village and country folk ; but in New Jersey it required 
legislation to induce villages to maintain "ordinaries" 
for wayfarers. 

96. Intellectual and Moral Conditions. 

Under the Dutch domination common schools flour- 
ished in New York, each town supporting them by public 
aid. The English, however, jealous of educa- 
tional enterprises under charge of a noncon- 
forming church, suffered them to fall into neglect. Thus 
at the close of the seventeenth century education was 
neither general nor of good quality. The English Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel established an excel- 
lent Church of England school in New York city (1704), 
but the Dutch did not take kindly to it ; they long clung 
to their mother-tongue and the few rude schools of their 
own ordering. In Pennsylvania but little attempt was 
made by the English in the direction of popular educa- 
tion outside of the capital, where was opened (1698) the 
now famous Penn Charter School, destined for fifty years 
to be the only public school in the province. The Ger- 
mans and Moravians maintained some good private 
schools in the larger Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
towns, but educational facilities in th'e rural places were 
generally wretched, where there were any at all. 

The Church of England was nominally established in 
all except Pennsylvania ; but it was managed with great 
lack of discretion, and aroused popular hostility against 
it and the mother-country. On Long Island and in New 



230 Middle Colonies. [Ch. x. 

Jersey the Puritans exerted a powerful influence on 
manners and thought. Everywhere the laws against ex- 
_ ,. . cesses in amusement and Sabbath-breaking 

Religion. , 1 . 1 T^ . 

were very severe, but only m the Puritan com- 
munities were they strictly enforced, although a strong 
sentiment of piety was general among all respectable 
classes of the people. Except in New York, towards the 
close of the seventeenth century there was toleration for 
all Protestant sects, but in Pennsylvania alone were Ro- 
man Catholics entitled to equal consideration ; the New 
York laws against "Jesuits and Popish priests" were 
harsh, and founded on the false notion that they incited 
the Indians to acts of violence. In New York the 
Church of England endeavored for a time (commencing 
in 1692), by violent persecution, to repress aR forms 
of dissent ; but the sectaries flourished despite official 
opposition. The leading denominations were the Dutch 
Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, English Independent, and 
English Presbyterian. The Scotch Presbyterians and 
New England Congregationalists were most numerous in 
New Jersey. In Pennsylvania and Delaware, next to the 
Quakers stood the Lutherans and Scotch Presbyterians, 
and the preachers of the latter church were vigorous 
proselyters, especially successful among the western 
borderers. The Germans, brought over, at first, largely 
through Penn's efforts, included a number of persecuted 
groups, — Quakers, Palatines, Ridge Hermits, Dunkards, 
and Pietists. All Christian forms and creeds were lib- 
erally represented in Pennsylvania, where there was as 
genuine religious freedom as exists anywhere in the 
United States to-day. 

In none of the middle colonies was crime so prevalent 
as to be a troublesome question, with v he one exception of 
piracy, — the most common and widely demoralizing of all 
the dangers to which the colonists were subjected. Public 



Ch. X.] Religion and Politics. 231 

officials often corruptly connived at the practice, and 
popular sentiment was not strongly against a set of men 
Crime and "^vlio brought wealth to the seaport towns 
pauperism, ^^d Spent it lavishly. Hangings and whip- 
pings were not infrequent public spectacles in the colo- 
nies, and the pillory was much in use. In the Long 
Island towns the New Englanders, who were dominant 
there, faithfully reproduced their native customs in the 
punishment of crime as in most other particulars. The 
Quakers were, on the whole, the most lenient in their 
treatment of evil-doers, up to 1718, when the second gen- 
eration of colonists abandoned the old theory of criminal 
legislation and adopted measures of harsh repression 
similar to those in vogue in other colonies. There was 
little pauperism, but perhaps more in Pennsylvania than 
elsewhere. In the treatment of this evil the Quakers 
were also wise, and in Philadelphia they established the 
first hospital for the insane, on the continent. 

97. Political Conditions and Conclusion. 

New Jersey having no foreign trade and but little 
manufacturing, her people were without experience of the 
Political harshness of the English Acts of Navigation 
spirit in the and Trade (page 104). Since there was not 

Jcrssvs ^1- o / 

' much to complain of regarding treatment by 
the mother-country, they were generally loyal. Taxes 
were light, public salaries small, and the colony, with 
Pennsylvania and New York as buffers, was in no danger 
from Indians. 

On the other hand, New York was consta.:tly subjected 
to border warfare, which proved a serious financial bur- 
in New den ; taxation, levied by duties un slaves and 
York, imports, and on real and personal property, 
was clumsy and oppressive, and the government corrupt 
and expensive. English officials and wealthy Dutch 



232 Middle Colonies, [Ch. x. 

merchants were loyal because it was their interest to be 
so; but the mass of the people, rich and poor, favored 
liberal candidates to the assembly. The men from New 
England exerted a strong influence on the general trend 
of poHtical thought. Elections excited great bitterness 
and often rioting, and they were made an excuse for the 
usual holiday excesses. There was a strong feeling of 
resentment against the home government, growing out of 
the Navigation Laws and the impressment of seamen. 

In Pennsylvania there prevailed a similar attitude of 
opposition to England; the Quakers were, however, con- 
andinPenn- servative, and slow in action, and their dislike 
sylvania. ^q \i^2x arms made the colony a drag upon 
all attempts at continental union for common defence. 
As in New York, local poHtics ran in extremely narrow 
channels, and election riots were not uncommon. 

Taking a general view of the middle colonies, we find 
that the fur-traffic, the fertile soil, a mixed system of 
agriculture, and an enterprising commercial 
ummary. gpjj-j^^ ^^x^ the chief sources of their material 
prosperity. There was prevalent a broader spirit of re- 
ligious toleration ; there was, perhaps, on the whole, a 
more democratic spirit among all classes of the people, 
than in New England or the South ; except in the case of 
the Dutch patroons, aristocracy did not flourish among 
them ; the state of popular education was pitiable ; the 
population was more mixed than anywhere else in Am- 
erica. The continental nationalities gave a more cheerful 
tone to society than existed in New England and the 
South ; the several communities varied greatly in .speech, 
customs, and thought, according to their origin, although 
we find, as the eighteenth century opens, that the English 
Puritans from New England were coming more and more 
to exercise a considerable influence in political, social, 
and religious affairs. 



Ch. XI.] Bibliography of Outlying Colonies, 233 



CHAPTER XI. 

OTHER ENGLISH NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES 
(1605-1750). 



98. References. 

Bibliographies. — Larned, Literature of American History, 

'■ 430-438, 458-462; Winsor, VIII. 65-80, 175-177, 188-190, 270- 

. 291. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. 2, 3, and 4, this volume {Epoch 

: Maps, Nob. 2, 3, 4); Winsor, MacCoun, and school histories al- 
ready cited. 

General Accounts. — H. Fox-Bourne, Story of our Colonics, 
chs. i.-xi.; Egerton, British Colonial Policy; Morris, History of 
Colonization ; E. Payne, European Colonies ; Cotton and Payne, 

( Colonies and Dependencies. 

Special Histories. — West Indies : Lucas, Historical Geog- 
raphy, II., sees, i., ii.; C. Eden, West Indies; J. Froude, English 
in West Indies (answered by J. Thomas, Froudacity) ; A. Kennedy, 
Story of West Indies ; J. Rodway, West Indies and Spanish Main; 
J. Lefroy, Discovery ajid Early Settlement of Bermudas ; J. Esque- 
mehng, Buccaneers of America (and similar books by Archenholtz, 

i Bumey, and Pyle); J. Masefield, On the Spanish Main. — New- 
foundland; D. Prowse, Newfoundland; also histories of the island 
by Hatton and Harvey, Smith, and Pedley; S. Dawson, Canada 
and Newfoundland; W. Greswell, Geography of Canada and New- 
foundland. — Nova Scotia: J. Bourinot, Builders of Nova Scotia; 
T. Haliburton, Nova Scotia; B. Murdoch, Nova Scotia; E. 
Richard, Acadia. — Canada: see § 107. — Hudson's Bay Com- 

. pany: G. Bryce, Remarkable History of Hudson's Bay Company; 
L. Burpee, Search for the Western Sea; A. Laut, Conquest of Great 
Northwest; B. Willson, Great Company. Consult also publica- 



234 Outlying Colonies. [Ch. xi. 

tions of Royal Society of Canada, and provincial historical and 
antiquarian societies. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Whitbourne, Discourse and Dis- 
covery of Newfoundland (1620) ; Mason, Brief Discourse of New- 
fouftdland (1620) ; Du Tertre, Histoire Generate des Antilles (1654) ; 
Denys, Description and Natural History of Arcadia (1672); Labat, 
Nouveau Voyage aux Isles d'Amerique (1724); Oldmixon, British 
Empire in America (1741); Dobbs, Countries adjoining to Hud- 
son's Bay (1744); Ellis, Voyage to Hudson Bay (1748); Hakluyt, 
Voyages. Reprints in publications of historical and antiquarian 
societies. 

99. Outlying English Colonies. 

It is usual to think and speak of the English colo- 
nies in North America as though they included only the 
Differences thirteen which, in 1775, revolted against the 
between the mother-country. In the eyes of the home 
colonies and government, however, and of the colonists 
ndghbo?s'to themselves, the relations between the mother- 
the south land and the English West India Islands, the 
Bermudas, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Hud- 
son's Bay, and, after 1 763, Canada, were much the same 
as between it and Virginia or New Hampshire or Penn- 
sylvania. The chief differences between the colonies 
were of race and occupation. Nova Scotia had, before 
the Revolution, but a few thousand English inhabitants ; 
the West Indies were almost exclusively sugar-producing 
colonies. Both on the north and on the southeast the 
English colonies touched elbows with the French in ac- 
tive commercial and territorial competition. The West 
Indies were the emporium for sugar and slaves, and an 
extensive traffic was had in both commodities with the 
continental colonies. This important commerce has al- 
ready been frequently referred to, particularly in the 
treatment of New England (page 185), whose vessels 
di'd the bulk of the colonial carrying trade. 



Ch. xi.j Relations with the Thirteen, 235 

Various causes conspired to prevent Englishmen in 
these outlying plantations from joining their brethren of 
Whv those ^^^ England, the middle colonies, and the 
neighbors South, in the movement for independence, 
voit'against The West India planters were largely aided 
England. j^y English capital, and in England, where 
many of them had summer residences, they enjoyed a 
profitable and exclusive market for sugar, cotton, and 
other tropical products. It was considered good policy 
by English statesmen to favor the island colonies as 
against the continental, for the products of the former 
did not compete with those of Great Britain ; so that while 
the Navigation Acts (page 104), restricting all colonial 
trade to British ports, at first bore heavily on the island 
planters, they were compensated in part by numerous 
discriminations in their favor. Many of these planters 
'were the sons of Cavaliers who had fled to the islands 
lof the Caribbean Sea to escape from the rule of the Com- 
■mon wealth ; or wealthy men who had, in times of popular 
'disturbance, been made to feel uncomfortable in their 

old homes on the American mainland. In Nova Scotia 
and Newfoundland the ports were filled with English 
' traders and officers ; and a great belt of untraversed forest 
-separated them from the New Englanders, with whom 
^ they had little in common. But perhaps above all was 
'the fact that His Majesty's fleet easily commanded these 

outlying colonies, and revolt was not to be thought of 

within the reach of the guns of ships. 
* It is worth our while briefly to review the history 
'^f these British American dependencies which for one 
-reason or another did not enter the struggle that was 

soon to rend the empire in twain at the moment it had 

reached its greatest extent 



236 Outlying Colofties, [Ch. XI. 

100. T^indward and Leeward Islands (1605-1814). 

Barbados^ the easternmost of the Windward Islands, 
was first visited by a party of English adventurers in 
Settlement 1605, sincc which time it has been an English 
of Barbados, possession. But it was not until 1625 that a 
colony was planted on the island. Its plan of government 
was much the same as that of the mainland colonies. 

During the Puritan uprising in England, Barbados was 
a place of refuge for loyalists, who were disposed, till the 
Refuge for appearance of a parliamentary force (165 1), to 
loyalists. hold the island for the king. Under Cromwell's 
rule many prisoners of war were sent to the island, thus 
increasing the royalist population. The Restoration was 
promptly proclaimed. 

The colony made rapid progress, although now and 
then checked by the fact that its exposed position made 
it in time of war a favorite point of attack by 
enemies of England. The numerous harbors 
along the coast were, in such troublous periods, infested 
by privateers, who seriously interfered with the com- 
merce of the island. In the war between Great Britain 
and France, commencing in 1756, the West Indies was 
the theatre of a prolonged conflict, into which the Barba- 
dians entered with zeal, supplying money and troops to 
the English side, and oftentimes suffering from reverses. 

Before the Navigation Acts (page 104), by which Eng- 
land sought to compel all her colonists to trade with 
her alone, the Dutch were good customers for 
Barbados sugar ; after that, English merchants 
having a monopoly of the traffic, the planters had much 
reason to complain. Nevertheless, the majority were 
stanch Tories, and remained so throughout the Revolu- 
tionary war. Many Barbadians settled from time to time 
upon the mainland, particularly in the Carolinas. We 



Ch. XI.] Windward and Leeward. 237 

have seen that Sir John Yeamans, a Barbados planter, 
led several hundred of his fellow-islanders thither (1664), 
and founded a town on Cape Fear river (page 89). 

St. Vincent., a hundred miles west of Barbados, al- 
' though discovered by Columbus in 1498 was unclaimed 
until 1627, when it was granted to the Earl of 
■ '■ '"""'• Carlisle by Charles I., along with others of the 
Windward group. In 1722, the Duke of Montagu came 
into possession of it; and then immigrants were intro- 
duced, who exported sugar, rum, molasses, and arrowroot. 
St. Lucia was settled by the English in 1639; J^s own- 
' ership was long passed back and forth by France and 
Other Wind- England, but in 1794 the latter secured per- 
ward islands, manent possession. The English flag was 
' raised over Tobago in 1580, but the island was alternately 
,! held by English and Dutch until 1814, since which date 
^' the proprietorship of the former has been undisputed. 
'. Grenada and the Gre?tadines, colonized by the French, 
' first came into English possession under the treaty of 
J 1763. Trinidad, the southernmost of the chain of islands 
and one of the most valuable, was occupied by the Span- 
" ish until 1797, when it was yielded up to Great Britain, 
under show of force ; to-day it is one of the most pro- 
^gressive of the smaller English dependencies. 

Upon the Leeward, or northern, islands of the Carib- 
^bean group are the colonies of Antigua, Montserrat, 
Early set- St. Christopher (St. Kitts), Nevis, Dominica, 
tiement. and the Virgin Islands. Antigua, the secLt oi 
the present colonial government, is the most import- 
jant. English families settled there in 1632, and again 
' in 1663. Ravaged by France three years later (1666), 
/it was soon after restored to the Enghsh under the 
Changes in treaty of Breda. Montserrat, the healthiest 
ownership, island in the West Indies, was also colo- 
nized by the English in 1632, and remained in their 



/ 238 Outlying Colonies. [Ch. xi. 

possession except for two brief terms (1664-1668 and 
1 782-1 784), when the French were in control. St. 
Christopher and Nevis form a united English colony 
which traces its history back to 1628. Dutch bucca- 
neers intrenched themselves on the rocky islets of the 
Virgin group as early as 1648, but were driven out by 
English pirates in 1666, since which date the archipelago 
has been the property of Great Britain ; a better class of 
settlers came in with the eighteenth century. Dominica^ 
the largest of the Leeward Isles, was included in Car- 
lisle's patent (1627); but the French were already in 
possession, living on friendly terms with the native 
Caribs, just as their compatriots in New France were 
with the more warlike Algonkins. Ceded by France to 
England in 1763, Dominica was several times recaptured, 
and not finally relinquished to the latter until 1814. 

101. Bermudas (1609-1750) and Bahamas (1522-1783). 

The fertile Bermudas, or Somers's Islands, — "still 
vex'd Bermoothes " of Shakespeare, — lie about six 
Early set- hundred miles east of South Carolina. They 
tlement. ^g^r the names of two navigators who were 
cast away upon them, — Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard 
(1522), and an Englishman, Sir George Somers (1609); 
the latter being on his way to Virginia to administer the 
affairs of that colony. Somers founded the first settle- 
ment. 

Under the third patent to the Virginia Company in 1612 
(page 72), the Bermudas and all islands within three hun- 
dred leagues of the Virginia shore were ceded to 

In the DOS- , '^ . -r- . -^t r^ • .^ 

session of that corporation. Except Nova Scotia, there- 
Virginia. iovQ, the Bermudas are the only present English 
colony which ever formed an integral part of any of the 
present States or Territories of the United States. The 
Virginia Company afterwards (161 6) parted with its 



Ch. XI.] Bermudas and Bahamas. 239 

right to the Bermuda Company, which carried thither a 
considerable company of Virginians. During the Com* 
monwealth, the Bermudas, Hke Barbados, were a refuge 
for royalists from England. Representative government, 
similar to that of the mainland colonies, was established 
in 1620, and has been ever since maintained. Tobacco 
was the staple of the colony until about 1707, when a salt- 
making industry sprang up and soon became the chief 
interest. 

The Bermudas were from the earliest times recognized 
as an important marine station. During the Revolu- 
Strategic tionary war Washington wrote : " Let us annex 
importance, the Bermudas, and thus possess a nest of hor- 
nets to annoy the British trade." But the place was 
undisturbed, and remained loyal to the king. 

The first American soil trod by Columbus was an 
island in the fruitful Bahama group. " This country," 
^^ , , he wrote, " excels all others as far as the day 

The land- ... 11,. r^y . 

fall of Co- surpasses the night in splendor." The natives 
lumbus. were numerous ; " their conversation is the 

sweetest imaginable ; their faces always smiling; and so 
gentle and so affectionate are they that I swear to your 
highness there is not a better people in the world." Yet 
(commencing in 1509) the Spaniards almost depopulated 
the islands ; forty thousand of these innocent aborigines 
were carried away to a wretched death in the mines of 
Cuba. 

In 1629, an English colony was planted on New Provi- 
dence, in the then deserted archipelago. But the French 
Spanish and ^^*^ Spanish persisted in harrying the settlement, 
French op- which was frequently the scene of stormy con- 

position to^. ., -^ ^ —, .. . 

English set- flicts. At last, in 1718, the Enghsh government 
tiement. drove out the pirates who had come to resort 

/ there in great numbers, resettled the islands, and an era 

; of progress opened. 



240 OiUlyi7ig Colonies, [Ch. XI. 

During the Revolutionary war many wealthy Tories 

went from the continental colonies to the Bahamas and 

opened up large plantations, with slave labor. 

Americans „,, i i i , * 

capture the ihe colony was captured by the Americans 
colony. (1776), — the only conquest of British territory 

during the Revolution, except the Canadian campaign of 
1775 and the occupation of the Northwest by Virginia 
troops in 1778. The Spanish took it in 1782, but it was 
soon retaken by tlie English (1783). Three quarters of 
a century later the islands became famous as the point of 
departure for blockade-runners bound into Confederate 
ports. 

102. Jamaica (1655-1750). 

Jamaica was under Spanish control until 1655, when 
an English fleet under Admirals Penn and Venables — 
England ^^^ former, father of the founder of Pennsyl- 
capturesthe vania — compelled the Surrender of the island 
to the Commonwealth. The opposition of the 
Spanish planters and their negro slaves — the latter 
were called Maroons — long made English government 
difficult ; the Spaniards were finally driven off, but the 
Maroons, fleeing to the mountains, were troublesome 
until the close of the eighteenth century. Much annoy- 
ance was also suffered in the seventeenth century from 
the buccaneers, who infested the Jamaica coast and 
preyed indiscriminately on all West Indian commerce*, 
they were suppressed with great difficulty. In 1728, 
English laws and statutes became applicable to the 
island. 

Like other islands in the West Indies, Jamaica was 
resorted to by many Tory planters from the continental 
The Tory colonies, and apparently had no sympathy 
element. yyith the Struggle of the latter for independ- 
ence. It was a colony having a large slave popula- 
tion, and after the separation of the continental colonies 



Ch. XL] Honduras^ Newfoimdlmid. 241 

became, to some degree, a competitor with them. The 
' abohtion of slavery in the island (1830-1837) had a great 
influence on the slavery conflict in the United States. 

103. British Honduras (1600-1798). 

Belize, or British Honduras, on the eastern shore of 
the Yucatan peninsula, was not occupied by English- 
Lawless men until after the suppression of freebooting 
Engfish set- ^"^ ^^^ Spanish main, — about the opening of 
ilers. the eighteenth century. At that time parties 

of English dyewood and mahogany cutters, many of 
whom had been pirates, established themselves at Belize. 
Their holdings were frequently beset by rival Spanish 
logging companies, but in 1798 the latter were expelled. 

Since that day Belize has existed as a prosperous 

English Crown colony, although England's legal right 

rights ques- to the country is still questioned by some 

authorities, and in 1846 this fact gave rise to 

serious diplomatic difficulties with the United States. 

104. Newfoundland (1497-1783). 

Newfoundland is the oldest of the colonial possessions 
1 of Great Britain. We have seen (page 25) that John 
i Early settle- Cabot discovered it in 1497, that Cortereal 
, ments. ^^s there for the Portuguese in 1500, and 

^ that by 1504 fishermen from Normandy, Brittany, and 
t the Basque provinces were regularly engaged on its 
shores. It was the nucleus for both French and Eng- 
b lish occupation of the mainland, and from the first an 
\ important fishery station. 

Not until 1583 did the English take formal possession, 
and it was much later before any of their numerous colO' 
nizing schemes attained any great measure of success. 
By the treaty of Utrecht (171 3) Newfoundland was 
16 



242 Outlying Colonies. TCh. XL 

acknowledged as English territory, but the French were 
given fishing privileges on the western and northern 
Growth of coasts. This led to diplomatic contentions, 
the colony, ^ot yet ended ; nevertheless settlement at once 
increased, and a satisfactory growth has since been main- 
tained. In 1728, a form of civil government was for the 
first time established. 

During the American Revolution Newfoundland had 
sufficient inducement to remain loyal ; since French and 
Loyalty to American competitors in the fisheries were kept 
England. q^^ ^y British fleets, her merchants had a 
monopoly of the European markets, and were enabled 
to maintain high prices. 

105. Nova Scotia, Acadia (1497-1755). 

First visited by the Cabots in 1497, it was not until 
1604 that European colonization was attempted in Nova 
French and Scotia, under the Frenchman De Monts (page 
English ri- 35). In 1613, the Virginia privateer, Argall, 
^* '^^' basing his excuse on Cabot's previous discov- 

ery, swooped down on the French settlements, demolished 
the cabins, and expelled the inhabitants. A grant of the 
peninsula — called Acadia by the French, but in this 
document styled Nova Scotia by the king — was made by 
James I. to Sir William Alexander; the latter was, how- 
ever, prevented by the French (1623) from carrying out 
his colcfnizing scheme. Nevertheless, several English- 
men and Scotchmen came into the country and mingled 
with the French, who were slowly re-populating it. 

Recaptured by an English force in 1654, Nova Scotia 
was, thirteen years later (1667), ceded to France. But 
New Eng- the ease of communication by water made the 
turesTh^ colony an uncomfortably close neighbor for 
country the English colonies farther south. In 1710 

the Massachusetts men captured Port Royal; and in 



Ch. XI.] Acadia, Hudson's Bay Company, 243 

1713 France relinquished possession to England by the 
treaty of Utrecht. Again in 1745, Massachusetts volun- 
teers captured Louisbourg on Cape Breton (§§ in, 112). 

England paid little attention to Nova Scotia until 1749, 
when four thousand emigrants were sent over to found 
Deportation Halifax. The French settlers, known as Aca- 
oftheAca- dians, had meanwhile become numerous, and 
greatly abused their privileges as neutrals by 
fostering and joining Indian war-parties against the New 
England settlers. In 1755, the Acadians were easily 
reduced by General Monkton, and seven thousand trans- 
ported to the British provinces southward, many of them 
finally drifting to the French settlement at the mouth of 
the Mississippi. 

A colonial constitution of the regulation English pat- 
tern was granted to Nova Scotia in 1758, and France 
An asylum formally released her claim by the treaty of 
for Tories. 1 763. At the Same time Cape Breton, which 
had been a second time captured (1758), was added. The 
Englishmen in Nova Scotia were largely of the official 
and trading class, having little in common with their 
neighbors of the more southern colonies. In the Revolu- 
tion several thousand loyalist refugees found an asylum 
in the peninsula. 

For the remaining French colony, Canada, special 
treatment will be necessary. 

106. Hudson's Bay Company. 

The Hudson's Bay Company, from the time it was char- 
tered by Charles II. (1670) until its lands were sold to 
Similarity to the British Government (1869), was a joint- 
the Massa- g^ock association, with exclusive commercial 

chusetts Bay ' 

Company. and political privileges, very similar to the 
Company of Massachusetts Bay. To-day it trades as a 
private corporation ; its former territory — the lands drain- 



244 Outlying Colonies, [Ch. Xl, 

ing into Hudson's Bay — is now open to all on equal 
terms. 

Fur-trade factories, protected by strong forts, were 
early planted by the company at the mouths of several 
French op- sub-arctlc rivers, such as the Rupert, Moore, 
position. Albany, Nelson, and Churchill, the only in- 
habitants being the small garrisons and the company's 
trading servants. Several expeditions were successively 
made to Hudson's Bay by French war vessels; much de- 
vastation was wrought and blood spilled, until in 1697 the 
treaty of Ryswick put an end to the trouble, and left the 
company in undisputed possession. It had lost more than 
;^20o,ooo in this predatory warfare, but soon regained its 
position, through the profits of the fur-trade. 

After the fall of New France (1763), the Hudson's Bay 
Company met formidable rivals in the enterprising North- 
American y^^'s>\. and American organizations ; the story of 
rivals. the fierce competition which ensued, with its 

effect on American settlement and international bound- 
aries, belongs to the period covered by other volumes 
of this series. 

From the foregoing sketch it will be seen that for all 
the American colonies to the south of Georgia the Eng- 
lish were obliged to fight a changeful battle 
with the Spaniards and the French. It was 
not till after the Revolutionary war that the permanent 
ownership of the islands was assured to Great Britain. 
A similar struggle, though briefer and sooner concluded, 
went on for the possession of the colonies north of Maine. 
But twelve years before the Revolution the last of them 
had been yielded to the British. In Nova Scotia, and 
later in Canada, English residents were not numerous till 
the beginning of the nineteenth century. In Newfound- 
land and Hudson's Bay, in colonial times, the settlers 
were English, but in numbers they were few. 



Ch. XII.] Bibliography of New France. 245 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE COLONIZATION OF NEW FRANCE (1608- 
1750). 



107, References. 

Bibliographies. — Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, LXXI. ? 19-365, 
and France in America, ch. xix.; H. Biggar, Early Trading Com- 
panies, 171-296; Lamed, Literature of American History, 395- 
421; Avery, II. 403-408, III. 436, 437; P. Gagnon, Essai de bibli- 
ographic canadienne; H. Harrisse, Notes pour servir a Vhistoire 
du Canada. Consult also Wrong and Langton, Review of His- 
torical Publications relating to Canada (published annually). 

Historical Maps. — No. 4, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 4) ; 
also maps in Parkman, Thwaites, Winsor, and MacCoun. 

General Accounts. — Lucas, Historical Geography, V. The 
standard EngUsh history of Canada is by W. Kingsford. The prin- 
cipal French historians are M. Faillon, J. Ferland, F. Garnier 
(Enghsh translation by Bell), and B. Suite. The prime authority 
for New France is Parkman 's series (12 vols., condensed into one 
by P. Edgar, 1902), France and England in North America. 
Briefer and more recent treatment of New France wiU be found 
in works by Bourinot, Douglas, Greswell, Laut, Roberts, Thwaites, 
and Tracy. 

Special Histories. — Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, and Mis- 
sissippi Basin; Biggar, as above; Doughty and Dionne, Quebec 
under Two Flags ; G. Parker, Old Quebec; Laut, Pathfinders of 
the West; F. Ogg, Opening of the Mississippi; C. Moore, North- 
west under Two Flags ; W. Munro, Seigniorial System in Canada; 
Bourinot, Local Government in Canada. — French and Indian War : 
Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe; A. Bradley, Fight with France for 
North America; W. Wood, Fight for Canada; A. Doughty, Siege 
of Quebec. — French in Northwest : Hinsdale, Old Northwest, chs. 
iii.-v.; Thwaites, Wisconsin (Commonwealths). — Manners and 
customs: C. Colby, Canadian Types of the Old Regime (1608- 
1698); Dunn's Indiana (Commonwealths), chs. ii., iii. for the 
Northwest; M. Pepper, Maids and Matrons of New France; 
Machar and Marquis, Stories of New France. See also biographies 
of prominent men. 



246 French Colonies. [Ch. xil. 

Contemporary Accounts. — For detailed list, consult 
Thwaites, France in America, 298-303. Numerous publications 
of Canadian and American historical and antiquarian societies 
(especially the Shamplain Society) contain useful material. Rela- 
tive to the Northwest, see Wisconsin Historical Collections^ XVI- 
XVIII. 

108. Settlement of Canada (1608-1629). 

The story of early French efforts at colonization in 
North America, from Cartier's visit (1534) to Champlain's 
foundation of Quebec (1608), the first permanent French 
colony in Canada, has already been told (Chapter II.). 

It was unfortunate for New France that Champlain 
incurred at the outset the hostility of the Iroquois (page 

196); the French and the Al^onquians with 
Effect of , , . . , r . i, , . 

Iroquois whom they mamtamed friendly relations were 
opposition, j^^g ^j^g^ g^^gjy afHicted by them. Had it not 

been for the Iroquois wall interposed between Champlain 
and the South, the French would doubtless have preceded 
the English upon the Atlantic plain. The presence of this 
opposition led the founder of New France, in his attempts 
to extend the sphere of French influence, to explore along 
the line of least resistance, to the north and west. 

In 161 1, Montreal was planted at the first rapids in the 
St. Lawrence, and near the mouths of the Ottawa and 
Champlain Richelieu. Four years later (161 5), Cham- 
on Lake plain reached Lake Huron by the way of the 
Ottawa. There were easier highways to the 
Northwest, but the French were compelled for many 
years thereafter to take this path, because of its greater 
security from the all-devouring Iroquois. 

To extend the sphere of French influence and the 
Catholic religion, as well as to induce the savages to 
patronize French commerce, were objects which inspired 
both lay and clerical followers of Champlain. Their 



1C08-1659] Ca7iada Settled. 247 

wonderful zeal illumined the hiLtory of New France with 
a poetic glamour such as is cast over no other part 
Explorers ^^ America north of Mexico. Under Cham- 
zx\d.c(mrejtrs plain's guidance and inspired by his example, 
traders and priests soon penetrated to the far 
west, — the former bent on trafficking for peltries, and the 
latter on saving souls. Another large class of rovers, 
styled cotireurs de bois^ or wood-rangers, wandered far and 
wide, visiting and fraternizing with remote tribes of In- 
dians ; they were attracted by the love of lawless adven- 
ture, and conducted an extensive but illicit fur-trade. 
Many of these explorers left no record of their journeys, 
hence i't is now impossible to say who first made some of 
the most important geographical discoveries. 

109. Exploration of the Northwest (1629-1699). 

We know that by 1629, the year before the planting o£ 
the Massachusetts Bay colony, Champlain saw an ingot 
Early dis- of copper obtained by barter with Indians 
thrNorth" f^O"^ tl"^^ shores of Lake Superior. In 1634, 
west Jean Nicolet, another emissary from Champlain, 

penetrated to central Wisconsin, by way of the Fox River, 
and thence went overland to the Illinois country, making 
trading agreements with the savage tribes along his path. 
Seven years afterwards (1641), Jesuit priests said mass 
before two thousand naked savages at Sault Ste. Marie. 
In the winter of 1658-1659, two French fur-traders, 
Radisson and Grosseilliers, imbued with a desire "to 
travell and see countreys" and "to be knowne with the 
remotest people," visited Wisconsin, probably saw the 
Mississippi, and built a log fort on Chequamegon Bay 
of Lake Superior. During 1662 they discovered James's 
Bay to the far northeast, and became impressed with the 
fur-trading capabilities of the Hudson's Bay region. Not 
receiving French support in their enterprise, they sold 



248 French Colonies. [Ch. xii. 

their services to England. On the strength of their dis- 
coveries, the Hudson's Bay Company was organized 
(1670). Saint- Lusson took formal possession of the 
Northwest for the French king, at Sault Ste. Marie, 
in 1671. Two years later (1673), Joliet and Marquette 
made their now famous trip over the Fox- Wisconsin 
waterway and re-discovered the Mississippi. 

Champlain died at Quebec in 1635, having extended 
the trade and domination of France westward to Wiscon- 
sin, by the Ottawa highway. It remained for 
the fur-trader, La Salle, one of the most bril- 
liant of American explorers, to add the Mississippi valley to 
French territory (i 679-1 682), his route being up the Great 
Lakes and via the Chicago-Illinois portage. It was 1699 
before a French settlement was planted in Louisiana (Old 
Biloxi), and 1718 before New Orleans was founded. 

The central geographical fact to be remembered in con- 
nection with the history of New France is, that the St. 
Lawrence and the chain of Great Lakes which serve as 
its feeders furnish a natural highway to the heart of the 
continent (page 4). 

It has been shown that the hostility of the Iroquois 
forced the French, in their earliest explorations west- 
Early explo- ward, to take the northern, or indirect, route of 
the Grea" the Ottawa River, and caused Huron to be 
Lakes. the first great lake discovered ; Ontario, Supe- 

rior, and Michigan being next unveiled, in the order 
named. Erie, the last to be seen by whites, was known 
as early as 1640, but owing to Iroquois warriors blocking 
the way, was not navigated until 1669, except by courem^s 
de bois seeking the New York fur-markets. Thus French- 
men were familiar with the sites of Sault Ste. Marie, 
Mackinav/, Ashland, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, and 
Chicago before they had visited the site of Detroit 
(1669). But that place came to be recognized after its 



1662-1701] Social and Political. 249 

settlement (1701) as the most important strategic point 
in the western possessions of New France. 
/The difference between the character of the English 
and French colonies in North America was great. Eng- 
Differences lishmen were content to sow and reap in a 
between plodding fashion, extending their territorial 

French and : ., ^ , , . , 

English bounds no faster than their settlements needed 
colonists. j.QQj^ £qj. growth. Their acquaintance with 
the Indians did not, with the exception of the New York 
and Southern fur-traders, extend beyond the tribes which 
touched their borders. They were possessed of remark- 
able vitality and a strong sense of political and com- 
mercial independence. 

110. Social and Political Conditions. 

The rigor of the Canadian winter, the shortness of the 
summer season, and persistent annoyance from the Iro- 
„ , quois, who at times had carried their warfare 

bois versus to the very walls of the settlements, combined 
armer. ^^ make the lot of the French farmer on the 

St. Lawrence far from prosperous. During many of its 
early years, New France largely depended for food upon 
supplies brought out from the mother-country. The fur- 
trader experienced but little more personal danger than 
the agriculturist who remained upon his narrow farm- 
hold abutting on the St. Lawrence ; while the fascination 
of the unbridled life of adventure led by the former, free 
from the restraints of church and society, was such as 
strongly appealed to young men of spirit. The trade of 
New France was farmed out to commercial companies 
and to favorites of the king and his autocratic colonial 
governors. Unhcensed traJSfic, such as was carried on 
by the coiireiirs de bois, was looked upon as akin to 
smuggling, and harsh laws were promulgated against 
it. Nevertheless the forests^, far into the continental 



250 French Colonies, [Ch. xil 

interior, were penetrated by gay adventurers conducting 
illicit barter with the red barbarians, while the agricul- 
ture of the colony languished. The river-systems of the 
English coast colonies did not easily conduct to the 
interior, but the far-reaching waterways of New France 
were a continual invitation. 

Iroquois interests were bound up with the Dutch, and 
after them with the English. The better to improve their 
, own position and to keep up prices, the Iro- 

treatment of quois sought to prevent Algonquians of the 
the Indians, ^pp^j. j^j^gg f^om trading with the Canadians. 
But French influence in the Northwest was neverthe- 
less strong. Colonial officials cajoled the Indians and 
plied them with presents ; while the wandering traders 
and their employees dwelt in comparative harmony with 
the red men, were adopted into many of the tribes, and 
married squaws, who reared in the forest villages an 
extensive half-breed progeny. 

The disposition of the French Crown to interfere with 
the fur-trade and to repress all commercial initiative not 
emanating from privileged circles, was but an 
policy of evidence of its general colonial policy. The 
ranee. colony on the St. Lawrence was made con- 

tinually to feel the hand of the king. In contrast to the 
free town and county systems of the English, the people 
of New France had no voice in their government or in 
the appointment of their officials. Even in the most 
trivial affairs they looked to the Crown for action. 

The country was governed much like a province in 
France. It was divided: (i) for judicial purposes, into 
^, , . districts, with a judge at the head of each, 

The admin- > J & ' 

istration of from whom there might be an appeal to the 
i ew ranee. g^pgj-jQj. council. Within the districts were 
(2) seigniories, or great estates. The seignior held his 
land immediately from the king, and parcelled it out 



Ch. XIL] Social and Political, 251 

among his vassals, the habitants^ or cultivators, who paid 
him a small rent, patronized his shops and mills, and 
owed him certain feudal obligations. Upon the estates 
were (3) parishes, in which the curd and the captain of 
militia were the chief personages. The only public 
duties exercised by the habitafits were in connection 
with parish affairs, and then the initiative was taken at 
Quebec, where resided the central authorit}', vested in 
the governor, intendant, and council. In 1672, Frontenac 
attempted to set up in Canada an assembly of the three 
estates or orders ; but Colbert, the king's prime minister, 
rebuked him, and gave directions for a gradual restriction 
of all privileges of representation. "It seems better that 
every one should speak for himself, and no one for all." 
The people were not permitted to think or act for them- 
selves, and they did not covet the privilege. Without 
political training, they had no notion of what the English 
call political rights. 

Had King Louis XIV. been a wise monarch, paternal- 
ism might not have been a disadvantage for a population 
Causes of of this sort. But the royal patronage of colo- 
weakness. nj^I enterprises was spasmodic, sometimes break- 
ing out into extravagant aid, again remarkable for its 
penuriousness. There were several in the long roll of 
colonial governors who were men of commanding abil- 
ity, and well fitted, under right conditions, to make of 
New France a success, — notably Champlain (1622-1635), 
Frontenac (1672-1682, and 1689-1698), and De Nonville 
( 1 685-1 689). But the times and the material at hand 
were against them. Official corruption ran riot. From 
the monopolists, who were the present favorites of the 
king, down to the military commander of the most distant 
forest trading station, officials considered the public 
treasury and the resources of the colony as a source of 
individual profit. The priesthood held full sway; little 



252 French Colonies. [Ch. XIL 

was done without the sanction of the hierarchy. The 
missionaries of the faith won laurels for bravery, self- 
denial, and hardihood, under the most adverse circum- 
tances. But the policy of the Church was too exclusive 
for the good of the colony. Huguenots, driven from 
France by persecution, were forbidden by the bishops to 
reside in Canada, and thus were compelled to contribute 
their brain and brawn to the upbuilding of the rival Eng- 
lish settlements. Of all Frenchmen, these were the best 
adapted to the rearing of an industrial empire in the New 
World. 

111. Intercolonial Wars (1628-1697). 

In Champlain's time, while France was busy in crush- 
ing Protestant revolts at home, the settlements of Port 
The struggle Royal and Quebec, then wretched hamlets of a 
F^* Th" nd ^^^ dozen huts each, fell an easy prey to small 
English post- English naval forces (1628- 1629). For a few 
poned. months France did not hold one foot of ground 

in North America. But as peace had been declared be- 
tween France and England before this conquest, the for- 
mer received back all its possessions, including Acadia 
(Nova Scotia) and the island of Cape Breton. The in- 
evitable struggle for the mastery of the continent was 
postponed, and Frenchmen held Canada for four genera- 
tions longer. By the close of the seventeenth century, 
men of New France were ranging at will over much of 
the country beyond the mountains, with visions of empire 
as extensive as the continent. 

The French were not exploring and occupying the 
western country unwatched. English colonial statesmen 
English jeal- understood from the first the import of the 
exjans^on of movement, and their alarm was frequently ex- 
New France, pressed in communications to the home gov- 
ernment. While Charles II. was a pensioner of Louis 
XIV., the royal intendant in Canada expressed the situa- 



162S-1690.] Intercolonial Wars. 253 

tion clearly when he urged Louis (1666) to purchase New 
York, " whereby he would have two entrances to Canada, 
and by which he would give to the French all the peltries 
of the north, of which the English share the profit by the 
communication which they have with the Iroquois, by 
Manhattan and Orange." In 1687, Governor Dongan of 
New York warned the ministry at London : *' If the 
French have all they pretend to have discovered in these 
parts, the king of England will not have a hundred miles 
from the sea anywhere." 

With the accession of Protestant William and Mary 
(1689), the Palatinate war broke out between England 
Extent of ^^^ France, and at once spread to America, 
French set- where it was styled King William's War. The 
French had at that time colonies in the undefined 
region of Acadia, on Cape Breton, and along the north bank 
of the St. Lawrence as far up as Montreal. There were 
a few small stockades scattered at long intervals through 
the Illinois country, upon the banks of the upper Missis- 
sippi, at Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior, at Sault 
Ste. Marie, on the St. Joseph's River, and elsewhere; with 
here and there a lonely Jesuit mission, and the movable 
camps of coureurs de bois. Elsewhere, north and west of 
the Atlantic plain, the grim solitude was broken only by 
bands of red savages, who roved to and fro through the 
dark woodlands, intent on war or the chase. 

The population of New France, in this wide region, 
was not, in 1690, more than twelve thousand, against one 
hundred thousand in New England and New York. Had 
it not been for the help of her Indian allies, the military 
strength of many of her more important stations, and the 
fighting qualities of her commanders, aided by division in 
the councils of the English colonists, New France would 
from the first have made a feeble defence against the over- 
powering resources of her southern neighbors. 



2 54 French Colonies. fCn. xii. 

King William's (or Frontenac's) War was costly to the 
colonists, and resulted in no material advantage to either 
King Wil- side. The French, under Governor Frontenac, 
liam's War. conducted their operations with vigor. Three 
winter expeditions, composed almost entirely of Indians, 
were sent out (1690) against the English frontier line, fu- 
riously attacking it at widely separated points, — New 
York, New Hampshire, and Maine. In consequence of 
the alarm created by these raids, the first colonial con- 
gress was held at New York (1690). A fleet commanded 
by Sir William Phipps (page 177), with eighteen hundred 
New England mihtiamen on board, captured Acadia and 
Port Royal that summer, but Acadia was retaken by the 
French the following season. During the five ensuing 
years fighting was confined to bushranging along the New 
York and New England border. The struggle was with- 
out further incident until Newfoundland yielded to the 
French (1696), and a party of French and Indians sacked 
the little village of Andover, Mass. (1697), but twenty-five 
miles out of Boston. Later in the year came the treaty 
of Ryswick, under which each belligerent recovered what 
he possessed at the outset of the war. 

112. Frontier Wars (1702-1748). 

After the treaty of Ryswick (1697) there was peace 
between England and France for five years. Then broke 
^ ., , out what is known in America as Queen Anne's 

Outbreak , . ^ , ,,,■ 

of Queen War (1702-1713), and m Europe as the War 
Annes ar. ^^ ^^^^ Spanish Succession. The war origin- 
ated in Europe; but one of England's objects in the 
struggle was to prevent the French from obtaining too 
firm a foot-hold in America. Much the same military 
operations as in King William's War were undertaken 
by both of the American opponents. 

Three attempts were made by New England troops to 



1690-174S.] Expeditions against ' Canada. 255 

recapture Acadia (1704, 1707, and 1710), the last being 
successful. The peace of Utrecht (1713) recognized 
England's right to Acadia, "with its ancient boun- 
daries," but it brought only nominal peace to the New 
York and New England colonists. Unfortunately the 
Continiia- northcm and western boundaries of Acadia 
tionofbor- were not therein fixed, and the country be- 
tween the Kennebec and the St. Lawrence 
was in as much dispute as ever. Border settlers all along 
the line from the Hudson to the Kennebec were in hourly 
peril of their lives from Indian scalping-parties. There 
was abundant proof that the authorities of New France, 
instructed by the government at Paris, were actively in- 
citing the red savages to forays for scalps and plunder. 
This fact tended greatly to embitter the relations between 
the rival white races, and led to measures of reprisal. 

The irregular War of the Austrian Succession when 
it extended to America was known as King George's 
King ^2S ( 1 744-1 748). The principal event was 

George's the Capture (1744) by New England troops 
ture of of the strong fortress of Louisbourg, on the 

Louisbourg. jgj^^^ q£ (3^pg Breton. Having achieved so 
heroic a victory almost single-handed, New Englanders 
considered themselves slighted by the treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle (1748), by which Louisbourg was surrendered 
to France, and in other respects the unfortunate state 
of affairs existing before the war was restored. Disap- 
pointment was openly expressed, and tended still further 
to strain the relations between the colonies and the 
mother-land. 

113. Territorial Claims. 

An attempt had been made at the convention at Aix- 
la-Chapelle to settle the boundary disputes in America 
by referring the matter to a commission. France now 
asserted her right to all countries drained by streams 



256 French Colonies. [Ch. xn. 

emptying into the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and 
the Mississippi. This allowed, the narrow strip of the 
Boundary ■ Atlantic coast would alone have been left to 
disputes. English domination. It was asserted on behalf 
of Great Britain that the charters of her coast colonies 
carried their western bounds to the Pacific; further, that 
as by the treaty of Utrecht France had acknowledged the 
suzerainty of the British king over the Iroquois confed- 
eracy, the English were entitled to all lands " conquered " 
by those Indians, whose war-paths had extended from 
the Ottawa River on the north to the Carolinas on the 
south, and whose forays reached alike to the Mississippi 
and to New England. For three years the commis- 
sioners quarrelled at Paris over these conflicting claims; 
but the dispute was irreconcilable ; the only arbitrament 
possible was by the sword. 

Meanwhile both sides were preparing to occupy and 
hold the contested fields. New France already had a 
Th Fr n h ^^^^ chain of water-side forts and commercial 
line of fron- stations, the rendezvous of priests, fur-traders, 
travellers, and friendly Indians, extending, 
with long intervening stretches of savage-haunted wil- 
derness, through the heart of the continent, — chiefly on 
the shores of the Great Lakes, and the banks of the prin- 
cipal river highways, — from Lower Canada to her out- 
lying post of New Orleans. Around each of these 
frontier forts was a scattered farming community, the 
holdings being narrow fields reaching far back into the 
country from the water-front, with the neat log-cabins 
of the habitants nestled in close neighborhood upon the 
banks. In the summer the men, aided by their large 
famiUes, tilled the ribbon-like patches in a desultory 
fashion, and in the winter assisted the fur-traders as 
oarsmen and pack-carriers. Many were married to 
squaws, and the younger portion of the population was 



Ch. XII.] Conflict Inevitable. 257 

to a large extent half-breed. They were a happy, con- 
tented people, without ambition beyond the day's en- 
joyment, combining with the light-heartedness of the 
French the improvidence of the savage. 

From 1700 on, the conflict seemed inevitable. The 
French realized that they could not keep up connec- 
The French ^'°^^ between New Orleans and their settle- 
covet the ments on the St. Lawrence if not permitted 
to hold the valley of the Ohio. Governor 
La Jonqui^re (i 749-1 752) understood the situation, and 
pleaded for the shipment of ten thousand French peas- 
ants to settle the region; but the government at Paris 
was just then as indifferent to New France as was King 
George to his colonies, and the settlers were not sent. 

114. Effect of French Colonization. 

Of the region in which were scattered the permanent 
French settlements, the southern shore of the Great 
Lakes and the Mississippi valley eventually became a 
part of the United States ; although these settlements 
were few and small, the influence of French operations 
in the West, on the development of the English colonies, 
^. was far reaching. New France will always 
tics of New be renowned for the immense area held by 
France. ^ small European population. She was from 
the first hampered by serious drawbacks, — centraliza- 
tion, paternalism, official corruption, instability of system, 
religious exclusiveness, the fascination of the fur-trade, a 
deadly Indian foe, and an inhospitable climate, — the sum 
of which was in the end to destroy her (page 49). She 
expanded with mushroom growth, but was predestined to 
collapse. Yet more than any other part of North America, 
the French colonies in what is now Canada preserve the 
language and the customs of the time of their settlement. 

«7 



258 Georgia, [Ch. xiii. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
THE COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA (1732-1755). 



115. Beferences. 

Bibliographies. — Avery, III. 438-440; Winsor, V. 392-406; 
Channing and Hart, Guide, § 103. 

Historical Maps. — No. 4, this volume {Epoch Maps, No. 4), 
MacCoun, and school histories already cited. 

General Accounts. — Avery, III. ch. xxiv.; Doyle, Colonies, 
V. ch. viii. ; G. Bancroft, II. 268-291 ; Greene, Provincial America, 
ch. XV.; Hildreth, II. 362-377; Lodge, Colonies, ch. Lx.; Winsor, 
V. ch. vi.; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 
chs. xi., xii.; W. Wilson, American People, II. 62-68; histories of 
Georgia by Jones, McCall, and Stevens. 

Special Histories. — C. Jones, Dead Towns of Georgia; P. A. 
Strobel, Salzburgers ; J. MacLean, Scotch Highlanders in America, 
ch. vi.; G. White, Historical Collections of Georgia; lives of 
Oglethorpe by Bruce, Cooper, Harris, and Wright. 

Contemporary Accounts* — Oglethorpe, Account (1732); 
Martyn, Reasons for Establishing Georgia (1733); Account Show- 
ing Progress of Georgia (1741); Impartial Enquiry into State and 
Utility of Province of Georgia (1741) ; Cadogan, Impartial Account 
of Expedition against St. Augustine (1743); Moore, Voyage to 
Georgia (1744); Egmont, Journal of Trustees for Establishing 
Colony of Georgia; Candler, Colonial Records. 

116. Settlement of Georgia (1732-1735). 

The southern boundary of South Carolina was practi- 
cally the Savannah River; but the English claimed as far 
Unsettled south as the St. John's. Just below the St. 
territory. John's, and one hundred and seventy miles 
south of the Savannah, lay the old Spanish colony of 



1565-1732-] Georgia Settled. 259 

St. Augustine, founded (page 34) in 1565. The country 
between the Savannah and the St. John's was a part of 
the old Carolina claim; but when the Carolinas became 
royal provinces the king reserved this unsettled district 
as crown lands. 

James Oglethorpe had been an army officer ; he was a 
member of parliament, and was prominent in various 
Formation efforts at domestic reform, particularly in the 
gia*CoS-°^' improvement of the condition of debtors' pris- 
pany. ons. Stirred by the terrible revelations of his 

inquiry, he engaged other wealthy and benevolent men 
with him, and formed a company (1732) for the settle- 
ment of the reserved Carolina tract, which was to be 
styled Georgia, in honor of the king, George II. The 
proposed colony was to serve the double purpose of 
checking the threatened Spanish advance upon the south- 
ern colonies in America, and of furnishing a home for 
members of the debtor class, who would be given a 
chance to retrieve their fortunes by a fresh start in life. 
This scheme, half philanthropic and half military, had 
also in view the extension of the English fur-traffic 
among the Cherokees, whose trade was now being 
eagerly sought by the Spanish on the south, and the 
French on the west. 

The company was given a charter under the name of 
"The Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia 
in America," its land-grant extending from 
the Savannah to the Altamaha. There were 
twenty-one trustees, with full powers of management; 
they were to appoint the governor and other officials 
during the first four years, — after that the Crown was to 
appoint. No member of the company was to hold any 
salaried colonial office. Never was a colony founded 
upon motives m.ore disinterested. It was to be, literally, 
" an asylum for the oppressed." The settlers themselves 



26o Georgia. [Ch. xiii. 

were not given any political privileges, for it was thought 
the trustees v/ould be better managers than a class of 
people who had not heretofore proved their capacity for 
business affairs. Slavery was prohibited, because it would 
interfere with free white labor, and a slave population 
might prove dangerous in case of a frontier war with the 
Spanish. That immigration might be encouraged, and 
thus that the colony might be strong from a military 
point of view, it was ordered that no one should own over 
five hundred acres of land. It was also ordained that all 
foreigners should have equal rights v/ith Englishmen, 
that there was to be complete religious toleration except 
for Roman Catholics, that none but settlers of steady 
habits should be admitted, that no rum should be im- 
ported, and that the colonists were to practise military 
drill. 

In November, 1732, Oglethorpe, — appointed governor 
and general, without pay, — set out from England with 
Savannah thirty-five Selected families, and in February 
founded. (1733) founded the city of Savannah, on a 
bluff overlooking Savannah River, some ten miles from 
the sea. In May he made a firm alliance with the 
neighboring Creeks, whom he treated with great consid- 
eration. The second year (1734) there arrived a num- 
ber of German Protestants, persecuted exiles from Salz- 
burg, who had been invited to America by the English 
Society for Propagating the Gospel. The Salzburgers 
proved a desirable acquisition, setting a much-needed 
example of industry and thrift. The Germans settled the 
Other settle- town of Ebenezer ; in the same year Augusta 
ments. .^3^5 planted, two hundred and thirty miles up 

the Savannah River, as a fortified trading outpost in the 
Indian country; while two years later (1736), another 
armed colony was sent to found Frederica, at the mouth 
of the Altamaha, on the Spanish frontier. 



1732-1741-] Develop7nent. 261 

Augusta, which in 1741 numbered but forty-seven per- 
manent inhabitants, in addition to a small garrison, was 
The fur- ^he chief seat of the Georgia and South Caro^ 
trade. ij^a fur-traffic. It was the eastern key to the 

Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee hunting-grounds. In 
1 741, it was estimated that about one hundred and 
twenty-five white men — traders, pack-horse men, ser- 
vants, and townsmen — depended for their livelihood 
upon the traffic centring at the Augusta station ; another 
estimate, made in the same year, placed the number of 
horses engaged at five hundred, and the annual value of 
skins at fifty thousand pounds. The profits were great, 
and would have been larger but for sharp competition 
in the far-away camps of the barbarians ; there the 
Georgians and Carolinians met Frenchmen, who had 
wandered from far Louisiana by devious ways, part 
water, and part land, and Virginians, who found their 
way to the southwest through the parallel valley system, 
thus escaping the necessity of climbing the mountain 
wall. 

117. Slow development of Georgia (1735-1755), 

The trustees perceived at last that men who had failed 
at home were not likely to be successful as colonists, and 
Dissatisfac- ^^^X ^^^* °^^^ ^ party of Scotch Highlanders 
tion of the and yet more German Protestants. The col- 
colonists. , r- 1 

ony now proved a success. Savannah was 

well built, courts were established, the land-system was 
well arranged, and Salzburgers, Moravians, and High- 
landers soon came out in considerable numbers (1735- 
1736). Yet there was no lack of discontent. The very 
class for whom the colony was founded formed its most 
undesirable inhabitants ; hardly a regulation originally 
established for their supposed benefit was to their taste, 
idle and worthless fellows were numerous, and some 



262 Georgia. [Ch. xiii. 

of them, finding their complaints unheeded, fled to the 
Carolinas or to join the rough borderers. Among the set- 
tlers were three enthusiastic sectaries, Charles Wesley, 
secretary to Oglethorpe, his brother John, a missionary 
to the Indians, and George Whitefield, who succeeded the 
latter after he returned to England. Whitefield in later 
years deeply stirred the American colonists, from Florida 
to New England, in his efforts to arouse in them a strong 
religious conviction (page 190.) 

In 1736, Oglethorpe made an expedition to the south 
as far as the English claim extended, and planted several 
Expedition forts. At the same time he made a treaty 
s|aS ^^^^ ^^ Chickasaws, and thus strengthened 
Florida. the southem line. Three years later (i739)j 
war broke out between Spain and England. Fearing 
that he might not be able to withstand an attack from 
the Spaniards, Oglethorpe took the offensive (1740), and 
marching into Florida planted himself before St. Augus- 
tine, which had a garrison of two thousand men, well 
supplied with artillery. Troops from Carolina soon came 
up. Sickness breaking out in the camp, and many of the 
Carohnians deserting, the siege, which had been gallantly 
conducted, was at last abandoned. 

Up to this time the Spaniards had been obliged to 
stand on the defensive ; Cuba was threatened by a large 
The Span- EngUsh squadron, — but the attack there proved 
cesSuiw^"^' ^ failure, and opportunity was given for con- 
taliate. centrating Spanish troops in Florida. In 1742 

a heavy assault by land and sea was made on Frederica. 
By a combination of bravery and superior stratagem, 
Oglethorpe succeeded in holding the place until the ene- 
my's fleet was frightened off by the arrival of English 
vessels, and Georgia was henceforth free from Spanish 
invasion. 

Oglethorpe returned to England the following year 



I743-I752-] Slow Growth. 263 

(1743), never to return to the colony. The trustees now 
placed the government in charge of a president and four 
A change of assistants. But after the departure of its gal- 
policy, lant and public-spirited founder the colony no 
longer flourished, and in a vain attempt to remove causes 
for dissatisfaction the company made matters worse. 
Slavery was introduced (1749), free traffic in rum was 
permitted, and restrictions on the acquisition of land were 
removed. Discontent grew apace among the original 
settlers, who were always hard to suit; only the High- 
landers and Germans remained satisfied. 

In 1752, the charter was surrendered by the disap- 
pointed proprietors, and Georgia became a royal province, 
A royal v^'i^^^ a government similar to that of South 
province. Carolina. The change wrought improvement 
in many ways. 

Georgia was the last of the thirteen colonies to be 
founded, and remained one of the weakest until long after 
Character- '"^^ Revolution. Its history is a proof that the 
istics of robust growth of a colony depends, not upon 
eorgia. ^^^ character and aims of its founders, but 
upon the slow accretion of public sentiment and public 
spirit. 



264 Colonial Development. [Ch. xiv. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CONTINENTAL COLONIES FROM 1700 
TO 1750. 



118. Beferences. 

BibliograpMes. — Avery, III. 426-446; Greene, Provincial 
America^ ch. xix. ; Winsor, V. passim. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. 3 and 4, this volume {Epoch Maps, 
Nos. 3, 4); MacCoun, and school histories already cited. 

General Accounts. — Avery, III. chs. x.-xxvii. ; G. Ban- 
croft, II. 212-565; Channing, II. chs. xi.-xix. ; Doyle, V.; G. 
Eggleston, Eighteenth Century; Frothingham, Rise of Republic, 
ch. iv.; Greene, as above; Hildreth, II. chs. xxii.-xxvii.; Lodge, 
Colonies; E. Sparks, Expansion of American People; Wilson, 
American People, II. chs. i.-iii.; Winsor, V. chs. ii.-vi. 

Special Histories. — PoUtical : L. Kellogg, Colonial Charter; 
Channing, Town and County Government; A. Cross, Anglican 
Episcopate; Greene, Provincial Governor; C. Bishop, Elections in 
American Colonies; A. McKinley, Suffrage Franchise; McCrady, 
South Carolina. — Economic: Weeden, Economic History; 
E. Lord, Industrial Experiments; G. Beer, Commercial Policy; 
R. Paine, Ships and Sailors of Old Salem. — NationaHties : 
L. Fosdick, French Blood in America; J. Rosengarten, French 
Colonists and Exiles; S. Cobb, Palatines; F. Diffenderfer, German 
Immigration; L. Bittinger, Germans in Colonial Times, and Ger- 
man Religious Life; Sachse, German Sectarians; Wayland, 
German Element; C. Hanna, Scotch-Irish; McLean, Scotch 
Highlanders. — Financial: D. Dewey, Financial History, ch. i.; 
A. Davis, Currency in Massachusetts Bay; F. McLeod, Fiat Money 
in New England; C. MacFarlane, Pennsylvania Paper Currency; 
W. Shaw, Currency. — Taxation : F. Jones, Taxation in Con- 
necticut. — Press: L. Schuyler, Liberty of Press; L. Rutherford, 
Zenger. — See also F. Dexter, Popidation in Colonies, and state 
histories. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Hutchinson, History of Massa- 
chusetts Bay; Falckner, Curieuse Nachricht von Pennsylvania 
(1702); Madam Knight, JoMrna/ (1704); Fontaine, J9iary (i 710- 
1716); Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania (175Q-1754); 
Franklin, Autobiography ; Woolman, Journal. 



1 700-1750] Population, 265 

119. Population (1700-1750). 

Up to 1700 the history of each colony is the history of 
a unit ; the impulse of colonization came in successive 
Phases of waves, but each little commonwealth had its 
common de- own interests, its own struggles, and looked 
veopmen . fQj^y^j-^j ^q j|.g ^^^ future. From 1700 to 1750, 
though the separate life and history of each colony con- 
tinued, there were perceptible certain great phases of 
common development, which will be briefly outlined. 

Although disturbed by wars with the French and In- 
dians, by domestic political quarrels, and by disputes with 
Growth of the mother country regarding the regulation of 
population, commerce and manufactures, there was a steady 
growth of population in British North America during 
the first half of the seventeenth century. The rewards of 
industry were sufficient, coupled with considerable relig- 
ious and political freedom, to entice a continuous, though 
fluctuating, immigration from England and the continent 
of Europe. In New England, where the English stock 
was practically unmixed with foreign blood, the rate of 
progress was less pronounced than in Pennsylvania and 
the South, which were largely recruited from other races. 
In 1700, the population of New England was something 
over one hundred and five thousand. By the beginning of 
the French and Indian War (1754) it was a little less than 
four hundred thousand, New Hampshire having forty thou- 
sand, Massachusetts and Maine two hundred thousand, 
Rhode Island forty thousand, and Connecticut a hundred 
and ten thousand. The middle colonies commenced the 
century with fifty-nine thousand; but by 1750 this had, 
chiefly owing to the exceptionally rapid growth of Penn- 
sylvania after 1730, increased to three hundred and fifty- 
five thousand, of which New York contained ninety thou- 
sand. New Jersey eighty thousand, and Pennsylvania and 



266 Colonial Developfnent. [Ch. XIV. 

Delaware one hundred and eighty-five thousand. In the 
Southern group there was a population of eighty-nine thou- 
sand in 1 700, which had grown to six hundred and twenty- 
five thousand in 1763, not counting Georgia, settled in 
1733, which in twenty years had acquired a population 
of five thousand; Maryland had a hundred and fifty-four 
thousand, chiefly Englishmen, but there was a liberal ad- 
mixture of Germans and people of other nationalities. 
Virginia had nearly three hundred thousand, of whom the 
blacks were now in the majority. North Carohna, im- 
portant in numbers only, had ninety thousand, of whom 
twenty per cent were slaves ; South Carolina had eighty 
thousand, the blacks outnumbering the whites by two or 
three to one. The total for the thirteen colonies in 1750 
is about thirteen hundred and seventy thousand. 

120. Attacks on the Charters (1701-1749> 

For many years the New England charters were in inv 
minent danger of annulment, the purpose apparently be- 
Attack on ing to place the colonies under a vice-regal 
EncriSiT government. Those of Connecticut and Rhode 
charters. Island were the liberal documents granted to 
them early in their career ; electing their own governors, 
they were practically independent of the mother-country, 
and the general movement against the charters had these 
two especially in view. From 1701 to 1749, the charters 
were seriously menaced at various times ; but on each oc- 
casion the astute diplomacy of the colonial agents in Eng- 
land succeeded in warding off the threatened attack. 
Worthy of especial mention in this connection are Sir 
Henry Ashurst, the representative of Connecticut, and 
Jeremiah Dummer, his successor. In 1715, at a time 
when it was proposed to annex Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut to the unchartered royal province of New Hamp- 
shire, Dummer issued his now famous Defence of the 



1(701-1729.] Attacks on the Charters, 267 

American Charters, in which he forcibly argued, — (i) 
That the colonies " have a good and undoubted right to 
their respective charters," inasmuch as they had been irre- 
vocably granted by the sovereign " as premiums for ser- 
vices to be performed." (2) " That these governments 
have by no misbehavior forfeited their charters," and 
were in no danger of becoming formidable to the mother- 
land. (3) That to repeal the charters would endanger 
colonial prosperity, and " whatever injures the trade of 
the plantations must in proportion affect Great Britain, 
the source and centre of their commerce." (4) That the 
charters should be proceeded against in lower courts of 
justice, not in parliament. Dummer's presentment of the 
case was regarded by the friends of the colonies as un- 
answerable, and was largely instrumental in causing an 
ultimate abandonment of the ministerial attack on the 
New England charters. 

In 1728, as a consequence of popular disturbances in 
flie Carolinas, a writ of quo warranto was issued against 
The Caroli- the charter, and the proprietors sold their in- 
r^a^^pro'-^ terests to the Crown. A royal governor was now 
vinces. sent out to each province. Heretofore, North 

Carolina had been nominally ruled by a deputy serving 
under the South Carolina governor. 

121. Settlement and Boundaries (1700-1750). 

Boundary disputes were a constant source of interco- 
lonial irritation. There were long and vexatious boundary 
Boundary wrangles between Connecticut and her neigh- 
disputes, bors, Rhode Island, New York, and Massachu- 
setts. In 1683 an agreement reached between Connecticut 
and New York was the basis of the present line, surveyed 
in 1 878-1 879 ; it was 1826 before the final survey between 
Connecticut and Massachusetts; the quarrel between 
Connecticut and Rhode Island was protracted and 



268 Colonial Developmeitt. [Ch. XIV. 

heated, the Hne between them not being definitively es- 
tablished until 1840. Wentworth, the first royal governor 
of New Hampshire (i 740-1 767), made large land-grants, 
which overlapped territory claimed by New York, and 
thus brought on a protracted boundary controversy be- 
tween those two provinces. Patents covering both sides 
of Lake Champlain were alike issued by New York and 
New Hampshire; the settlers east of the lake organ- 
ized in revolt, under the cognomen of Green Mountain 
Boys, and were preparing to set up a government of their 
own, when the Revolution broke out, and in 1777 the un- 
acknowledged government of Vermont was formed. A set- 
tlement of the boundary was not reached until Vermont 
was admitted to the Union (1791). The boundary disputes 
of New York with Massachusetts and Connecticut were 
settled prior to the Revolution. In 1737 a boundary com- 
mission adopted the present line between Massachusetts 
and New Hampshire. The same commission estab- 
lished the present western boundary of Maine. In a con- 
test between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the former 
claimed a portion of the latter's territory, on the ground 
that it was included in the old Plymouth patent ; but in 
the final settlement Rhode Island retained possession. 
The Penn and Baltimore families long wrangled over the 
boundaries between Pennsylvania and Maryland. An 
agreement was reached in 1732, and ratified by a conven- 
tion in 1760: under its terms, Charles Mason and Jere- 
miah Dixon, two eminent London mathematicians, ran the 
famous "Mason and Dixon line'* (1767), separating the 
southern colonies from the northern. The boundary line 
between the Carolinas was not defined until 1735- 1746. To 
the north and west, English boundary disputes with the 
French led to protracted and harassing wars; while to 
the south, Georgia's claims clashed with those of the 
Spaniards in Florida, and during the war beween Spain 



X710-1770] Boundaries and Frontiers, 269 

and England occasion was taken by Oglethorpe (1740), 
governor of Georgia, to invade Spanish territory (page 262). 

No man of his time was more energetic in pushing the 
confines of settlement and encouraging development than 
Spotswood's Governor Spotswood of Virginia (1710-1722), 
enterprising a Stalwart soldier who had fought under Marl- 
*^"^'' borough. He built iron furnaces, introduced 

German vine-growers, made peace with the Indians, and 
established several excellent mission schools for them 
upon the frontier; under his administration the fur-trade 
spread far inland, and he did much to extend topographi- 
cal knowledge of Virginia by fostering exploration. 

The Shenandoah valley, opened to settlement by 
Spotswood, became, after 1730, a notable home for 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, driven by English persecu- 
T,, tion from their home in Ulster. They were by 

The moun- •' •' 

tain bor- this time coming over to America in two steady 
^^^'^' streams, one pouring in at Philadelphia, and the 

other at Charleston, S. C. Those arriving at Philadel- 
phia pushed westward to the mountains, and drifting 
southwestward through the long parallel valleys of the 
Alleghany range, met in the Shenandoah and kindred 
valleys those of their brethren who had gone up into the 
hills of Carolina. It was from these frontier valley homes 
that the migration into Kentucky and Tennessee pro- 
ceeded a generation later, led by such daring spirits as 
Boone, Sevier, and Robertson. 

122. Schemes of Colonial Union (1690-1754). 

Schemes for a union of the colonies, to provide for the 
common defence and settle intercolonial differences, were 
Govern- numerous enough, after the example set by the 
mental New England Confederacy (Chapter VII.). 

p ans. They emanated almost entirely, however, from 

the government party, and chiefly for this reason were 



270 Colonial Development. [Ch. XIV. 

regarded with popular suspicion. In 1690 a continental 
congress had been held at New York for the purpose of 
treating with the Iroquois against the common enemy, 
New France (page 206). In 1697 William Penn laid be- 
fore the Board of Trade a plan providing for a high com- 
missioner, appointed by the king, to preside over a council 
composed of two delegates from each province, and to 
act as commander-in-chief in times of war. The scheme 
aroused much opposition from colonial pamphleteers, and 
failed of adoption ; other plans which were promulgated 
from time to time, for the next sixty years, were in the 
main adaptations of Penn's, some of them providing for 
two or three strongly centralized provinces, each to be 
presided over by a viceroy, assisted by a council of 
colonial delegates. 

While the Board of Trade, distracted by doubts whether 
the colonies could be more firmly held as separate gov- 
NeiVhbor- cmments or under a viceregal union, was en- 
hood con- gaged in considering the various propositions 
submitted to it, several neighborhood con- 
gresses were held by the provinces themselves, chiefly to 
treat with Indians or for purposes of defence. But these 
congresses were in no sense popular meetings ; they were 
composed of the official class, and had little more effect 
on the people than to accustom them to the spectacle of 
colonial union for matters of common interest. 

In 1754 the Lords of Trade recommended a second gen- 
eral congress of the colonies, to treat with the Iroquois 
The second ^%'^'^^\ they also favored "articles of union 
colonial and confederation with each other for the mu- 
congress. ^^^j defence of his Majesty's subjects and in- 
terests in North America, as well in time of peace as 
war." The congress was held at Albany. Only seven 
of the colonies were represented, — New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 



I690-I754-L Colonial Unions. 2/1 

Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The convention adopted 
a plan of union prepared by Franklin, providing for a 
general government that should be self-sustaining and 
control federal affairs, — v/ar, Indians, and public lands, 
— while the colonial governments were to retain their 
constitutions intact. The plan was rejected by the 
Its plan of colonial assemblies. Franklin himself wrote : 
union re- "The Crown disapproved it, as having too 
^^^ ^ ' much weight in the democratic part of the 

constitution, and every assembly as having allowed too 
much to prerogative." The defeat of the Albany plan 
marks the end of efforts at union on the part of the 
official class. The next movement came from the peo- 
ple themselves, as the result of oppression on the part 
of the mother-country. 

123. Quarrels with Boyal Governors (1700-1750). 

The history of the English continental colonies during 
the first half of the seventeenth century was largely made 
Quarrels be- up of petty bickerings between the popular as- 
no?s an^d^^*^" semblics and the royal governors. The salary 
assemblies, question was the most prominent feature oi 
these disputes. Acting under orders from the Crown, the 
governor in each colony insisted on being paid a regular 
salary at stated intervals ; but the assembly as persist- 
ently refused, and desiring to keep him dependent upon 
them, voted from time to time such sums as they chose. 
The principle at stake was important: a fixed salary grant 
would have been in the nature of a tax imposed by the 
Crown. Had the assembly been complaisant, the govern- 
ment would have been thrown into the hands of the royal 
governor and council, through their absolute power to 
veto laws. The acrimonious contention was greatly dis- 
turbing to all material interests, but it served as a most 
valuable constitutional training school for the Revolution 



272 Colonial Development. [Ch. xiv. 

At times, in Boston, excitement over this perennial 
quarrel ran to a high pitch, and now and then it looked as 
The salary though the assembly would be obliged to yield ; 
Massachu- ^^^ ^^ "^^'^ °^ Massachusetts were of stubborn 
setts. clay, and never displayed more bravery than 

when the governor, backed by writs from England, threat- 
ened them the loudest. In 1728, the assembly, defended 
itself, saying it was "the undoubted right of all English- 
men, by Magna Charta, to raise and dispose of money for 
the public service of their own free accord, without com- 
pulsion." The Privy Council at last yielded the point 
(1735), and left the Massachusetts governor free to re- 
ceive whatever the assembly chose to grant. In some 
of the colonies this salary question resulted in frequent 
deadlocks, in which all public business was at a stand* 
stilL 

124. Governors of Southern Colonies. 

Other differences between the governors and their as- 
semblies hinged on claims of prerogative, fees for issuing 
Other dif- land-titles, issues of paper money, official at- 
ferences. tempts to favor the Church of England at the 
expense of dissenters, and levies of men and money for the 
public defence. There were also special grievances in many 
South Caro- °^ ^^^ provinces. In South Carohna (1704- 
lina'sexpe- 1706), the proprietors attempted to exclude all 
but Church of England men from the assem- 
bly. This led to a bitter controversy, in which the dis- 
senters successfully appealed to the House of Lords, and 
legal proceedings were commenced by the Crown for 
the revocation of the Carolina charter; but they were 
;.iot then pushed to an issue. In 1719 the meddlesome 
executive policy of the proprietors resulted in a popular 
uprising, in which the governor was deposed. Later, the 
authorities (i 754-1 765) attempted to resist the issue of 
paper money, and also to reduce representation in the 



1700-1722.] Southern Turbideiice. 273 

assembly, while at the same time the home government 
introduced some offensive regulations regarding land 
patents. Popular indignation again expressed itself in 
bloody turbulence, and the colony fell into great disorder. 

In North Carolina the scattered colonists maintained 
a vigorous resistance to arbitrary authority ; the tone of 
North Caro- official life was low; corruption in office was 
l'"a. common ; contests over questions of public pol- 

icy often led to rioting and anarchy ; bloodshed was not 
infrequent in such times of popular disturbance. In the far 
western valleys there was for a long period no pretence of 
law or order, and criminals of every sort found a safe 
refuge there ; while pirates — until Blackbeard's capture 
by Governor Spotswood of Virginia in 171 8 — freely used 
the deep-coast inlets as snug harbors, from which they 
darted out with rakish craft to attack passing merchant- 
vessels. From 1704 to 171 1 there was practically no 
government in the province, owing to an insurrection 
headed by Thomas Carey, whom Governor Spotswood 
finally arrested (17 10) and sent prisoner to England. 

During the administration of Governor Nicholson 
(1698-1705) the Virginia assembly had quietly gained 
control of the financial machiner\% by making 

Virginia. . ^ „ -. -^I 

the treasurer an officer of its own appomtment. 
When, therefore, the customary eighteenth-century wrang- 
ling commenced, the assembly was master of the situa- 
tion. The burgesses refused to vote money for public 
defence until the governors yielded their claims of pre- 
rogative, and land-title fees. 

125. Governors of Middle Colonies. 

Nowhere was the weary disagreement between gov- 
ernor and assembly so harmful to provincial interests as 
in Pennsylvania. There were elements in the contention 
there not existing elsewhere. The Penn family, as the 
18 



2/4 Colonial Development, [Ch. XIV. 

proprietors, resisted the proposed inclusion of their lands 
in tax levies for the conduct of military operations, while 
Pennsyl- ^he assembly for many years would vote no 
Tania. money for such purposes or pay the gover- 

nor's salary, except on the condition that the proprietary 
estates paid their share in the cost of defence. The 
proprietors finally yielded (1759). Other points of 
difference were, — the assertion of the gubernatorial pre- 
rogative of establishing courts, and proprietary opposi- 
tion to the reckless issues of paper money frequently 
ordered by the assembly. The Quakers were opposed to 
warfare on principle ; they would neither take up arms 
themselves in defence of the borderers from the French 
and Indians, nor, except when driven to it in times of 
great distress, vote money to equip or pay volunteers. 
They had, too, a great objection to levying and paying 
taxes; and in this they found strong allies in the Ger- 
mans, who had now come over in large numbers, chiefly 
to settle on wild lands in the interior of the province. 
Most of the Germans and Quakers would go to almost 
any length in compromise with the Indian and French 
invaders who were mercilessly destroying the pioneer set- 
tlements. The proprietors and their governors fretted 
and threatened ; the English government sent over order 
after order to the stubborn legislators ; the borderers 
plied the deputies with heartrending appeals for aid : yet 
the assembly long maintained its obstinate course, now 
and then grudgingly voting insufficient issues of depre- 
ciated bills of credit. 

Lord Cornbury, who succeeded the Earl of Bellomont 
as governor of New York and New Jersey (1702), was 
not a man to inspire respect, being profligate 
and overbearing; he opposed popular inter- 
ests, winning especial hatred through his petty persecu- 
tion of dissenters from the Church of England. He was 



1700-1750] Middle Colonies. 275 

recalled in 1708, in response to general denunciation of 
his course. His successors were in continuous and often 
acrimonious controversy with their assemblies, but gen- 
erally succeeded in inducing the deputies to contribute 
with more or less liberality to the conduct of expeditions 
against the French and Indians. 

Governor Belcher of New Jersey (1748- 1757), who had 

been worsted in a heated salary contest in Massachusetts 

(i 730-1 741), and had profited by experience, 

New Jersey. ^ -^ r .1 r ^- i j 

was now one of the few executives who under- 
stood how to handle an assembly. By an obliging tem- 
per he readily secured the passage of such revenue bills 
as were essential to the proper defence of the colony 
in the French and Indian war, and avoided serious 
dispute. 

126. Governors of New England Colonies. 

The brief term of Sir William Phipps (i 692-1 695), as 
governor of Massachusetts, — a province then extending 
Phipps's all the way from Rhode Island to New Bruns- 
Mfss"achu-'° wick, with the exception of New Hampshire,— 
setts. was filled with bitterness and disappointment. 

At the outset of his career and the inauguration of the 
new charter (page 176), the assembly in the absence of 
any provision under that head, enacted that taxes were 
only to be levied in the province with the consent of the 
assembly. Had this rule been accepted by the Crown it 
would have left little occasion for quaiTels between gov- 
ernor and people ; its rejection by the home government 
left the door open to a train of events which ended, 
eighty-four years later, in continental independence. The 
witchcraft delusion (page 190) had stirred the colony to 
its centre, and Phipps gained no friends from his attitude 
in that affair ; he angered Boston and crippled its politi- 
cal influence by securing the passage of a law (1694) that 



2/6 Colo7tial Developments fCii. xiv. 

deputies to the assembly must be residents of the dis- 
tricts they represented ; and his temper was so testy that 
at the time of his recall he was engaged in a quarrel with 
nearly every leading man in the province. 

The Earl of Bellomont came over in 1698 as governor 
of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New 
The Earl of Hampshire. In November the General Court 
fnd°rSi'- ^^ Massachusetts invited him to visit Boston 
chusetts. " SO soon as the season of the year might 
comfortably admit his undertaking so long and difficult a 
journey." In the following spring (1699) he responded 
to the call. In Massachusetts Bellomont won favor by 
siding, as he had in New York, with the popular patty, 
and recommending to his government the introduction oi 
many reforms. In Rhode Island, where he tarried by the 
way, he found much to dissatisfy him, and reported the 
people as being ignorant, in a state of political and moral 
disorder, with an indifferent set of public officials, who 
were corrupt and abetted the pirates who swarmed in 
Narragansett Bay. Bellomont promptly devoted himself 
to the suppression of these sea-robbers, and in the year of 
his own death (170 1 ) brought the notorious Kidd to the 
gallows. Bellomont's conciliatory attitude towards Mas- 
sachusetts did not please the English Board of Trade, 
which sent him warning that the colonists had " a thirst 
for independency," as was particularly exemplified in 
.their " denial of appeals." 

Connecticut and Rhode Idand were left with their old 
charters and their popularly elected governors, and thus 
Connecticut Were happily spared those quarrels over sala- 
Isian^'fre^ ries, prerogatives, and fees which elsewhere in 
from dis- the colonies aroused so much ill-feeling. Gov- 
^" "' ernor Fletcher of New York was commissioned 

to take military control of Connecticut. He went to Hart- 
ford (1693) to assert his right; but meeting with rude 



1692-1750] New England Governors. 277 

treatment, felt impelled to return home, and little more was 
heard from him. Like Massachusetts, Connecticut was 
successful in preventing legal appeals to England. 

In New Hampshire — which was separated from Mas- 
sachusetts in 1741 and became a royal province — there 
The Mason ^^^ ^^^'^ vcvox^ than a century of dispute be- 
ciaiminNew tween the settlers and the proprietors respect- 
Hampshire. • ^, ,T 1 • 1 , , . , 

mg the Mason claim, and much confusion had 

at times arisen. The matter was at last ended by the 
purchase of the claim, by a land company (1749), which 
released all of the settled tracts. 

V 127. Effect of the French Wars (1700-1750). 

The aggressions of the French and their policy of incit- 
ing the northern and western Indians to murderous attacks 
War with °^ ^^ slowly advancing English frontier, kept 
French and the colonies which abutted on New France in 
" '^"^* an almost constant state of excitement. Those 
provinces which had no Indian frontier, such as Mary- 
land, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, and the 
Carolinas, — which latter had, however, several desperate 
local Indian uprisings to quell, — experienced but little 
alarm over the common danger, viewed schemes of union 
with indifference, and contributed but grudgingly to the 
funds and expeditions for general defence. Pennsylvania 
was open to attack along an extended border; the Ger- 
mans and Quakers being opposed to making war on 
Indians, her frontier suffered greatly from frequent raids 
of the enemy. New York, being on the highway between 
the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes and Canada, was 
the scene of many bloody encounters. No other province 
was so greatly exposed, and on none did the cost of the 
prolonged and desperate contest between the French and 
English in America so heavily fall. In 1706, during 
Queen Anne's war (i 702-1713), the French made an 



278 Colonial Development. [Ch. xiv. 

unavailing attack on Charleston, South Carolina. In the 
capture of Port Royal (1710), New England men chiefly 
participated, and they were otherwise prominent through- 
out the war. In King George's War (1744- 1748), New 
Englanders alone took part, although New York and a 
few other colonies contributed to the army chest. Louis- 
burg was captured in 1745 by New England troops, who 
were highly elated at their brilliant conquest. Eng- 
land, too busy with her own affairs, could not well send 
protection the following year, when a French fleet threat- 
ened New England; a curious chapter of marine disas- 
ters alone saved the Americans from being severely 
punished in retaliation. This doubtless unavoidable neg- 
lect on the part of the mother-country, and the final sur- 
render of Louisburg to the French by the treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle (1748), tended still further to strain the relations 
between England and her colonies on the -American 
continent. 

Admiral Vernon's expedition against the French in the 
West Indies in 1740 was participated in by men from 
Vernon's nearly all the English colonies, island and 
SJe West" ^° continental. A campaign against the Spanish 
Indies. settlements in Florida was undertaken by Ogle- 

thorpe during the same year (page 262). The Carolinas 
gave somewhat tardy aid to Georgia in this daring 
enterprise. 

128. Economic Conditions. 

Massachusetts was the first of the colonies to issue 
paper money. This was in 1690, to aid in fitting out an 
Paper money expedition against Canada. The other pro- 
and finance, yinces followed at intervals. Affairs had come 
to such a pass by 1748 that the price in paper of ^100 
in coin ranged all the way from ^^iioo in New England 
to ^180 in Pennsylvania. The royal governors in all 



1700-1750.] Waf^s and Economic Conditions, 279 

che colonies, acting under instructions from home, were 
generally persistent opponents of this financial expedient. 
Governor Belcher of Massachusetts, in a proclamation 
against the practice (1740), said it gave "great interrup- 
tion and brought confusion into trade and business," and 
"reflected great dishonor on his Majesty's government 
here." In 1720, Parliament passed what was known as 
" the Bubble Act," designed to break up all private bank- 
ing companies in the United Kingdom chartered for the 
issue of circulating notes ; this Act was made applicable to 
the colonies in 1740, and reinforced in 175 1, the last-named 
Act forbidding the further issue of colonial paper money 
except in cases of invasion or for the annual current ex- 
penses of the government, these exceptional cases to be 
under control of the Crown. In 1763 all issues to date 
were declared void; although ten years later (1773), pro- 
vincial bills of credit were made receivable as legal tender 
at the treasuries of the colonies emitting them. The con- 
troversy between the colonies and the home government 
over these issues of a cheap circulating medium devel- 
oped much bitterness on the part of the former, who 
deemed the practice essential to their prosperity ; and it 
was one of the many causes of the Revolution. 

Another constant source of irritation were the parlia- 
mentary Acts of Navigation and Trade (page T04). In 
ActsofNavi- ^^ continental colonies there was no popular 
gation and Sentiment against smuggling or other interfer- 
ence with the operation of these obnoxious 
laws. In no colony were the Acts strictly observed; had 
they been enforced they would have worked unbearable 
hardship. Massachusetts particularly offended the Board 
of Trade by openly refusing to provide for their more 
rigorous execution; coupling its stubborn behavior with 
the bold assertion, quite contrary to ministerial ideas, that 
the colonists were "as much Englishmen as those in Eng- 



28o Colonial Developme?it. [Ch. XIV,. 

land, and had a right, therefore, to all the privileges which 
the people of England enjoyed." 

129. Political and Social Conditions (1700-1750). 

In the colonies, as afterwards in the States, there was a 
continual contest for supremacy between Virginia, where 
Virginia political power was lodged in the aristocratic 
NewEn7-'^ class, and New England, where there was a 
land ideas, voluntary recognition of aristocracy, but where 
the body of the people ruled. Virginia ideas strongly 
influenced North Carolina on the south, and Maryland, 
Delaware, and Pennsylvania on the north. The tone of 
life in South Carolina was purely southern, with no trace 
of Virginian characteristics ; New York, also free from 
Virginian methods, was strongly influenced by New 
England ideas. 

The governing class in Virginia were of strong Eng- 
Political ^^^^ stock, and when occasion for political 
aflfairs in the action offered, were ready for it, proving them- 
selves good soldiers and statesmen, and fur- 
nishing some of the most powerful leaders in the revolt 
against the mother-country. Their protracted fights with 
the French and Indians inured them to habits of the 
camp ; while quarrels with their governors, and bicker- 
ings with the home government over the Navigation 
Acts (page 104) and the impressment of seamen, fur- 
nished schooling in constitutional agitation. By the 
middle of the eighteenth century the majority of Vir- 
ginians were natives of the soil, and their attachment to 
England was weaker than that of their fathers ; while the 
considerable foreign element weakened the bond of union 
with the mother-country. In Maryland general hostility 
to the Church of England and its impolitic attempt to 
suppress dissent, was an important factor in widening tlie 
breach. North Carolina continued to be distinguished 



J700-1750.I Politics and Society. 281 

for disorder and a low state of morals, education, and 
wealth, and produced no great leaders in the opposition 
to Great Britain. The people, having a keen percep- 
tion of their rights, were eager enough in the patriot 
cause ; but there was a large Tory party, and conse- 
quently fierce internal dissensions characterized the his- 
tory of the colony throughout the Revolutionary agitation. 
Being dependent on England for trade and supplies, 
the aristocratic planters of South Carolina were drawn 
much closer to the mother-country than in any other 
continental colony. The Tory element was powerful, 
yet ^he best and strongest men of the slave-holding 
class were patriots, and furnished several popular lead- 
ers of ability, — the colony ranking second only to Vir- 
ginia, in the southern group, during the struggle with 
the home government. Georgia was but newly settled, 
and the English colonists were still strongly attached 
to their native country; she was therefore more loyal 
than her neighbors. The settlers from New England, 
with the political shrewdness peculiar to their section, 
succeeded in committing Georgia to the patriot cause; 
but the mass of the people remained lukewarm, and 
when English rule was overturned there was much law- 
lessness. The community was immature, and had not 
yet learned the art of self-government. 

The Navigation Acts and the impressment of seamen 
bore hard on Pennsylvania, and there was no lack of 
in the Mid- Complaint against other forms of ministerial 
die Colonies; interference with colonial rights. But the 
Quakers, who were chiefly of the shopkeeping and trad- 
ing class, had not experienced the long and painful 
struggle for existence that had been the lot of most of 
the other colonists. They had been prosperous from the 
beginning; and being conservative, timid, and slow in 
disposition and action, were not easily persuaded to make 



282 Colonial Development. [Ch. XIV. 

material sacrifices for the sake of political sentiment. 
Thus Pennsylvania was an uncertain factor in the revolt. 
New Jersey, with no Indian frontier, no foreign trade, 
and but light taxes, had few causes for complaint against 
England. Her rulers were thrifty, conservative farmers, 
who were disposed to be loyal ; yet as they were of pure 
English descent, and tenacious of their liberties, they 
were gradually drawn into an attitude of opposition to 
English rule. New York was the only one of the middle 
group of colonies which stood stoutly against England. 
Since the days of Andros the people ** caught at every- 
thing to lessen the prerogative." New York city, as the 
second commercial port on the coast, was naturally a seat 
of opposition to the navigation laws. But the Tory mi- 
nority were nowhere more active or determined than 
in New York. 

The New Englanders were pure in race, simple and 
frugal in habit, enterprising, vigorous, intelligent, and 
and in New "^'ith a high average of education. They were 
England. small freeholders, possessed of a democratic 
system which had powers of indefinite expansion, and 
were trained in a political school well calculated to pro- 
duce great popular leaders. Their pohtical principles, 
developed by a century and a half of contention with the 
home government, pervaded the colonial revolt, and were 
carried out in the national government in which it re- 
sulted. The New England Confederation of 1643 bore 
fruit in the Stamp-Act congress of 1765, and still more in 
the Confederation of 1781 and the Constitution of 1787. ; 

18G. Besults 01 the Half-Century (1700-1750). 

Although the period 1 700-1 750 has not the interest of 
the previous half century of colonization, it has great con- 
stitutional importance. The rugged individuality of the 



Summary. 283 

founders of the colonies, — New England, middle, and 
southern, — was beginning to give way to a distinctly 
The colonial American character. The colonies lived sepa- 
spirit. rate lives; there was little intercommunication, 

but their interests were much the same, their relations 
with the mother-country were the same, and in the inter- 
colonial wars they learned to act side by side. More 
than this, they all enjoyed a greater degree of personal 
freedom and local independence than was known any- 
where else in the world. They had no consciousness of 
any desire to become independent. They had their own 
assemblies, made their own laws, and disregarded the Acts 
of Trade. In population the colonies increased between 
1650 and 1700 from about 100,000 to 250,000 ; during the 
period 1 700-1 750 they grew to i ,370,000. A few passable 
towns were built, — Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. 
Their means were small, their horizon .narrow, but their 
spirit was large. 

As the year 1750 approached, there came upon the colo- 
nies two changes, destined to lead to a new political life. 
In the first place, the colonies at last began to overrun the 
mountain barrier which had hemmed them in on the west, 
and thus to invite another and more desperate struggle 
with the French. The first settlement made west of the 
mountains was on a branch of the Kanawha (1748); in the 
same season several adventurous Virginians 
OhfoCom'-^ hunted and made land-claims in Kentucky and 
pany. Tennessee. Before the close of the following 

year (1749) there had been formed the Ohio Company, 
composed of wealthy Virginians, among whom were two 
brothers of Washington. King George granted the com- 
pany five hundred thousand acres, on which they were 
to plant one hundred families and build and maintain 
a fort. The first attempt to explore the region of the 
Ohio brought the English and the French traders into 



284 Colonial Development, [Ch. xiv. 

conflict ; and troops were not long in following, on both 
sides. 

At the same time the home government was awaking 
to the fact that the colonies were not under strict con- 
Newcolo- trol. In 1750 the Administration began to 
nial policy, consider means of stopping unlawful trade; 
Before the plan could be perfected the French and In- 
dian War broke out, in 1754. The story of that war 
and of the consequences of simultaneously dispossessing 
the French enemies of the colonies, and tightening the 
reins of government, belongs to the next volume of the 
series, — the Formation of the Union. 



INDEX. 



ACA 

ACADIA, united to Massachu- 
setts, 176. See Nova Scotia- 

Africa, supposed migrations from, to 
America, 21 ; European explora- 
tions of coast of, 24. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 255,278. 

Alaska, Asiatic migration to, 2; 
aborignes of, 12. 

Albany, founded, 196 ; as Fort 
Nassau, 197 ; as Fort Orange, 
198, 199; re-named by English, 
203 ; characteristics, 228 ; fur-trade, 
253; first Colonial Congress, So, 
206 ; second Colonial Congress, 
270. 

Albemarle, 89 •, a district in Carolina, 
88-91. 

Alexander VI., Pope, bull of parti- 
tion, 24, 36, 196. 

Algonquian Indians, status, 9—12 ; 
as allies of the French, 206, 246, 
250 ; uprising in New York, 200. 

Alleghany mountains. See Appa- 
lachian. 

Andover, Mass., sacked by French 
and Indians, 254. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, governor of 
Virginia, 79; governor of New 
York and the Jerseys, 175, 176, 
205, 206, 282 ; governor of New 
England, 175, 189, 211. 

Augusta, Ga., founded, 260; fur- 
trade, 261. 

Annapolis, Md., founded, 87, 98. 

— , Nova Scotia. 6"!?^ Port Royal. 

Antigua, Leeward Islands, 237. 

Antinomian theory, held by Anne 
Hutchinson, 133, 134. 



ASS 

Appalachian mountains, extent of, 3, 
4, 6, 7 ; early explorations, 4, 269 ; 
characteristics, 5, 6,97,179,219; 
aborigines, 11 ; early Scotch set- 
tlements in, 269. 

Argall, Samuel, governor of Virginia, 
73 ; destroys French settlements 
in Acadia, 242. 

Arizona, aborigines of, 8 ; early 
Spanish explorations, 28-30 ; Span- 
ish missions, 31. 

Armada, the Spanish, interrupts 
American colonization, 40; defeat 
of, 48, 52. 

Asia, possible emigration from, to 
America, 2, 3 ; distance from Am- 
erica, 5 ; relation to American ex- 
ploration, 25-27 ; early European 
commerce in, 23, 24. 

Assemblies, hampered by commercial 
companies and royal and proprie- 
tary interference, 58; hold tlie 
purse-strings, 59 ;origin of bicameral 
system, 61 ; representative system, 
62, 63 ; in the South generally, 97, 
109, no; in Virginia, 73,75,77, 
78; in the Carolinas, 90, 92; in 
Maryland, 82-86 ; in Pennsylvania, 
215, 216; in New Jersey, 2n, 212, 
214 ; in New Netherlands,2oo, 201 ;' 
in New York, 200, 201, 204-206; 
in Connecticut, 142, 143 ; in Rhode 
Island, 147, 148; in Massachusetts, 
123, 126, 12S; quarrels with the 
royal governors (1700-1750), 271- 
279. 

Association for the defence of tho 
Protestant religion in Maryland,87. 



286 



Index, 



ATL 

Atlantic slope, natural entrance of 
North America, 3, 5 ; rivers, 3, 4; 
three grand natural divisions, 5, 6 ; 
mining, 6 ; soil and climate, 6, 97 ; 
aborigines of, 9, 10 ; early fur- 
trade on, 18 ; early European ex- 
plorations, 25-28; early English 
colonies on, 47. 

Aztecs. See Mexico. 



BACON, Nathaniel, rebellion of, 
78, 79, 80. 

Bahamas, the, discovered by Colum- 
bus, 23 ; claimed by English, 44 ; 
included in Carolina, 90; send 
settlers to Carolina, 93, 97 ; his- 
torical sketch, 239, 240. 

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, discovers 
Pacific ocean, 26. 

Baltimore, Md., founded, 87. 

— , Lord. See Calvert. 

Baptists, in Carolina, 89 ; in Rhode 
Island, 159. 

Barbados, founded, 89 ; claimed by 
English, 44 -, send settlers to Vir- 
ginia, 93 ; Quakers at, 165 ; his- 
torical sketch, 236, 237, 239. 

Basques, American discoveries by, 
21 ; engaged in Newfoundland 
fisheries, 241. 

Belcher, Jonathan, governor of New 
Jersey, 221, 275; governor of 
Massachusetts, 279. 

Belize, history of, 241. 

Bellomont, Earl of, governor of New 
York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, 
and New Hampshire, 207, 274, 
276. 

Berkeley, Sir William, governor of 
Virginia, 75, 77, 78, 79, 84 ; one of 
the Carolina proprietors, 89; on 
education in Virginia, 107, 108; 
interest in New Jersey coloniza- 
tion, 205, 211, 212. 

Bermudas, claimed by English, 44 ; 
annexed to Virginia, 72 ; send 
settlers to Carolina, 90 ; inter- 
colonial relations, 234 ; historical 
sketch, 23S, 239. 

Biloxi (Old), Miss., founded, 248. 

Blackbeard, a noted pirate, 273. 

Blommaert, Samuel, Dutch patroon, 
199, 207, 208. 

Blue Laws, fabricated by Peters, 
146. 

Body of Liberties, 138, 139. 



CAL 

Boston, founded, 127; the Anne 
Hutchinson episode, 133-136; 
New Haven colonists in, 144; 
formation of New England Con- 
federation, 156; Gortonites at, 
160; expeditions against New 
Netherlands, 163, 164, i68 ; levies 
intercolonial duties, 164; repres- 
sion of the Quakers, 165, 166; ar- 
rival of royal commissioners, 168; 
Indian missionary efforts, 170; 
evasion of Navigation Acts, 173 ; 
the rule of Andros, 175, 176; 
slaver}', 182 ; commerce, 186 ; con- 
dition in 1700, 186; Tory element, 
i8g; Sewall's repentance, 191, 192 ; 
characteristics, 228; disputes with 
Phipps, 27s, 276 ; Bellomont's 
visit, 276. 

Boundary disputes between the Jer- 
seys, 212; between Maryland and 
Pennsylvania, 217; between 
French and English colonies, 255, 
256 ; summary of intercolonial, 
267-269. 

Brazil, discovered by Cabral, 44 ; 
Portuguese colonies, 43, 44, 48; 
Huguenots in, 44. 

Breda, treaty of, 237. 

Brewster, William, leader of the 
Pilgrims, 116, 117. 

British Honduras, historical sketch, 
241. 

Brittany, early fishers from, at New- 
foundland, 26, 33, 241. 

Brook, Lord, attempt to introduce he- 
reditary rank in Massachusetts, 59, 
129; Connecticut land grant, 141. 

Brownists, a branch of the Indepen- 
dents, 115. 

Bubble Act, passed by Parliament, 
279. 

CABOT, John, discovery of North 
America, 25, 36, 52, 241, 242. 

— , Sebastian, on the American coast, 
25- 

California, gulf of, aborigines. 8, 12; 
early Spanish explorations, 28, 29, 
31 ; Spanish missions, 31. 

Calvert, Cecilius, second Lord Bdlti- 
more, 82,83, 85, 86. 

— , Charles, as governor of Mary- 
land, 86 : as third Lord Balti- 
more, 86, 87. 

— , George, first Lord Baltimore, 76^ 
77, 81, 82, 208. 



bidex. 



287 



CAL 



CHE 



Calvert, Leonard, governor of Mary^ 
land, 77, 82, 83, 84. 

Calvin, John, influence of his teach- 
ings, 115. 

Calvinists, De Monts' colony of, 35, 
36. 

Cambridge, Mass., founded, 127; 
fortifications at, 128 ; meeting of 
General Court, 135, 136 ; establish- 
ment of Harvard College, 130, 15S, 
188 ; emigration to Connecticut, 
140 ; the " bishop's palace," 189. 

Cambridge platform adopted, 162. 

Canada. See New France. 

Cape Breton island, discovered by 
Cabot, 25; in early struggles be- 
tween French and English, 252 ; 
fall of Louisburg, 243; in King 
William's War, 253; in King 
George's War, 255. 

Cape Cod, Champlain's visit, 36; 
named by Gosnold, 41; arrival of 
Pilgrims, 117, 118; Indian mis- 
sionary efforts, 170; character of, 
179. 

Caribs, the, 8, 9, 236, 239. 

Carolina, named after Charles IX., 
33 ; causes of failure of early colo- 
nies, 41-43 ; French expelled by 
Spaniards, 48 ; early settlers, 87- 
89 ; under the lords proprietors, 89 
-92 ; division of the colonies, 92 ; 
reunited, 94; Barbadians in, 236, 
237 ; geography, 96, 97 ; popula- 
tion, 97 ; character of colonists, 
97 ; agriculture, 102 ; commerce, 
104. See North Carolina and 
South Carolina. 

Carteret, Sir George, obtains grant 
of New Jersey, 205, 211, 212- 

— , Philip, governor of New Jersey, 
211. 

Cartier, Jacques, explores St. Law- 
rence River, 32, 246. 

Catholics, in England, 115; in Vir- 
ginia, 76 ; in Maryland, 77, 81-87, 
108 ; in the Carolinas, 95 ; in 
Pennsylvania, 108, 230; in New 
Jersey, 214; in Georgia, 260; 
policy of the churcli in New 
France, 49, 50, 246, 247, 251, 
252. 

Cayuga Indians, 10, 11. 

. Champlain, Samuel de, early explor- 
ations, 26, 35 ; founds Quebec, 36, 
246; fights the Iroquois, 196; on 
Ljike Huron, 246, 247 ; as gover- 



nor of New France, 251, 25a ; 
death, 248. 

Charles I., king of England, inter- 
est in Virginia, 75 ; interest in 
Maryland, S2, 84 ; interest in Caro- 
lina, 88 ; attitude towards the Puri- 
tans, 125, 127 ; annuls Massachu- 
setts charter, 131; grants Windward 
Islands to Carlisle, 237 ; execution, 
76. 

Charles II., king of England, recep- 
tion of Berkeley 79; proclaimed in 
Massachusett.«, 159; attitude to- 
wards Quakers, 166; displeased 
with New Englanders, 166-16S, 

174 ; treatment of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island, i68, 169 ; claims 
New Netherlands, 202, 203 ; in- 
terest in New Jersey, 212 ; charter 
to Penn, 215; charters Hudson's 
Bay Company, 243 ; attitude to- 
wards New France, 252 ; death, 

Charleston, S. C, founded, 92, 93, 
98 ; churchmen in, 109 ; character- 
istics, 228 ; arrival of Scotch, 269; 
attacked by French, 278. 

Charlestown, Mass., founded, 122, 
127; fortified, 131; hanging of a 
witch, 190. 

Charters, commercial privileges of, 
104, 105 ; of Virginia, 60, 66-69, 
72, 74, 113; of Maryland, 81, 82; 
of the Carolinas, 88, 89, 267, 272 ; 
of Georgia, 259 ; of Delaware, 216 ; 
of Pennsylvania, 210, 215, 217; 
under the Dutch, 197, 198; South 
Company of Sweden, 208 ; of New 
Jersey, 211-213 ; of Connecticut, 
61, 141, 168, 175, 276, 277; of 
Rhode Island, 60, 61, 148, 149, 168, 

175 ; Plymouth Company, 120, 
121, 124, 131, 150; Massachusetts 
Bay, 60, 125-127, 131, 159, 169, 
174, 17s, 177 ; to the Gorges, 122, 
125, 150; to John Mason, 125, 
150, 152; New Hampshire, 174; 
ministerial attacks on the (1701- 
1749), 266, 267. 

Cherokee Indians, status, 11; rela~ 
tions with Georgians, 259, 261. 

Chesapeake Bay, Cabot at, 25 ; 
reached by Lane, 39 ; reached by 
Jamestown colonists, 70 ; arrival 
of royal commissioners, 76 ; Clay- 
borne's operations, 77, 83 ; geog- 
raphy, 218, 219. 



2SS 



Index, 



CHI 

Chickasaw Indians, status, ii ; rela- 
tions with Georgians, 261, 262. 

Chicora, Vasquez's conquest of, 27. 

Choctaw Indians, status, 11. 

Church of England, in England, 
114, lis; i" the Carolinas, 88, 91, 
94, 109, 272 ; in Virginia, 67, 78, 
108; in Maryland, 86, 87, 280; in 
the South generally, 102, in; in 
New York, 229, 230,274; in Mas- 
sachusetts, 122, 130-132, 173, 175, 
189; in New Hampshire, 152; in 
Maine, 150, 151 ; a source of dis- 
pute between governors and as- 
semblies, 272. 

Cibola, Seven Cities of, visited by 
Spaniards, 29-31. 

Clarendon, a district in Carolina, 89, 
Qc-. 93- 

Claiborne, William, his quarrel with 
Maryland, 76-78, 83-85. 

Cliff-Dwellers, status, 8. 

Colleges, Harvard, 80, 130, 158, 181, 
188 ; Yale, 80 ; William and Mary, 
80, 81, 103. 

Colonization, motives of, 46 ; early 
views of, 46; French policy, 35, 
48-50 ; Spanish policy, 47, 48, 51 ; 
Portuguese policy, 48 ; Dutch pol- 
icy, JO, 51 i German policy, 51 ; 
English policv, 51, 53 : relations 
of colonists with Indians, 17-19 ; 
experience of sixteenth century, 
41-44 ; character of English emi- 
grants, 53, 54 ; the institutions they 
imported, 55-63 ; reasons for the 
English movement, 65, 66. 

Columbus, Christopher, discoveries 
piior to his, 21-23 ! his discoveries, 
23-25, 31, 237 ; his motives, 4, 6. 

Commerce, early Norse, 22 ; of Eu- 
rope with India, 23, 24, 27, 42 ; 
fur-trade of early European ex- 
plorers, 26, 28, 35, 52, 53 ; French 
commercial companies, 35 ; of 
Spain, in West Indies, 38, 39; as 
a motive of colonization, 46; Span- 
ish policy, 47 ; Portuguese policy, 
48, 50; Dutch policy, 50, 51, 103- 
105 ; early English commercial 
companies, 55, 65, 68, 69; London 
company, 66-74 ; Plymouth com- 
pany, 114 ; Massachusetts Bay 
Company, 125-127; economic ef- 
fect on England, 65 ; intercolo- 
nial, 102-107, 130; colonial, with 
England, 103, 104, 130, 169 ; the 



CRO 

Navigation Acts, 104-106. See 
Fur-trade. 

Communal proprietorship, in Vir- 
ginia, 68, 73; at Plymouth, 117, 
120, 121. 

Congregationalists, origin of name, 
162 ; organization, 189 ; in middle 
colonies, 230. 

Connecticut, founded, 136, 140-142 ; 
Pequod War, 136, 137 ; govern^ 
ment, 142-144; early Dutch set- 
tlers, 136, 198, 199; conflicts be- 
tween Dutch and English, 163, 
202 ; New Haven founded and 
absorbed, 144-146, 168 ; character- 
istics of Connecticut and New 
Haven, 146; in the New England 
Confederation, 155, 156; river-toll 
levied, 164; treatment of Quakers, 
166; Massachusetts absorbs more 
territory, 173 ; history of the char- 
ter, 168, 175, 177, 266, 267, 276, 
277 ; litigation, 182, 183 ; iron 
mining, 184 ; agriculture, 1S6 ; 
colonization schemes on the Dela- 
ware, 208, 209 ; boundary disputes, 
267, 26S ; represented in second 
colonial congress, 270 ; Fletcher's 
visit, 276, 277 ; population (1700) 
180, (1754) 265. 

Cordilleran mountains. See Rocky 
mountains. 

Cornbury, Lord, governor of New 
York and New Jersey, 274, 275. 

Coronado, Francisco Vasquez de, 
search for Cibola, 11, 29-31. 

Cortereal, Caspar, explores Ameri- 
can coast, 25, 241. 

Cortez, Hernando, conquest of Mex- 
ico, 8, 27-29. 

Council for New England. See Ply- 
mouth Company. 

County, the, in England, 55 ; in the 
South, 56; in middle colonies, 
57; in New York, 204; in Penn- 
sylvania, 216. 

Coureurs de bois, their characteris- 
tics, 247, 249, 250; explorations of, I 
248, 253. _ 

Creek Indians, status, 11; relations 
with Georgians, 260, 261. 

Cromwell, Oliver, accepted in Vir- 
ginia, 76, 78; in Maryland, 85; J 
friendship for New England, 159; 1 
expedition against New Nether- . 
lands, 163, 164, 202; sends pris' \ 
oners to Barbados, 236. 



IncCex. 



28-9 



CUB 



ENG 



Cuba, slavery in, 239 ; threatened by 
English, 262. 

Culpeper, Thomas, Lord, governor 
of Virginia, 7S-S0. 

Cumberland Gap, a highway for ex- 
ploration, 4. 



D 



AKOTAH Indians, status, 11, 



Danes, in Iceland, 21. 

Dare, Virginia, first English child 
born in the United States, 40. 

Davenport, John, heads New Haven 
colony, 144, 145. 

Delaware, early Dutch settlers, 207, 
20S ; the Swedes, 201, 20S ; fall of 
New Sweden, 209 ; annexed to 
Pennsylvania, 210, 216, 217; a 
separate colony, 61, 2 10, 217 ; geog- 
raphy, 21S, 219; social classes, 
222-224 ; occupations, 224, 225 ; 
trade and commerce, 225, 226; life 
and manners, 227; religion, 230; 
general characteristics, 210; In- 
dian affairs, 277 ; influence of Vir- 
ginian ideas on, 280 ; population 
(1700), 221, 222, (1750) 266. 

— , Lord, governor of Virginia, 72. 

— River, early settlements on, 
51, 197-199, 207-210, 215, 216; 
Dutch claims on, 163 ; conflicts 
between Dutch and Swedes, 200. 

De Monts, Sieur, colonizes Nova 
Scotia, 35, 36, 242. 

De Soto, Hernando, expedition of, 
II, 30, 31, 47. 

Detroit, site discovered, 248, 249. 

Digger Indians, status, 9. 

" Discovery," the, carries colonists 
to Virginia, 69. 

Dominica, Leeward Islands, 237, 238. 

Dorchester, Mass., fortified, 131 ; 
emigration from, to Connecticut, 
140, 141. 

Drake, Sir Francis, explorations, 37, 
52 ; relieves Raleigh's colony, 39; 
resists the Armada, 40. 

Dudley, Joseph, president of An- 
dros's council, 175, 176. 

— , Thomas, lieutenant-governor of 
Massachusetts, 127, 135, 175; gov- 
ernor, 129. 

•* Duke's laws," the, in New York, 
203, 204. 

Dummer, Jeremiah, " Defence of 
the American Charters," 266, 267 



Dunkards, in Pennsylvania, 230. 

Dutch, the, early claims in America, 
44 ; colonial policy, 50, 51 ; as 
ocean earners, 103, 104; plant 
New Netherlands, 196-198; pa- 
troon system, 198-200; operations 
on the Connecticut, 136, 140, 141 ; 
collisions with English traders and 
settlers, 47, 145, 155, 162-164, i99t 
200; Swedish opposition, 51,208, 
209; wars with England, 159, 163, 
164, 168, 201-203 ; fall of New 
Netherlands, 168, 202, 203 ; New 
Netherlands recaptured, but lost 
again, 205 ; in the West Indies, 
236-238 ; in New York, 203, 204, 
220, 221, 223, 227, 229, 231, 232; 
in New Jersey, 210, 211, 221 ; in 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, 207- 
210, 215, 217, 221, 222. 

— East India Company, sends out 
Hudson, 196. 

— Reformed Church, in middle 
colonies, 230. 

— West India Company, char- 
tered, 197 ; patroon system, 198- 
200, 223 ; plan of government, 203 ; 
Delaware settlements, 207, 209 ; 
pacific policy towards New Eng- 
land, 163. 



EAST INDIA COMPANY, 
66. 
East Indies, Dutch in the, 50. 
East New Jersey, as a separate prov- 
ince, 212-214; population (1700), 

221. 

Eaton, Theophilus, heads New Ha- 
ven colony, 144, 145. 

Edward VI., king of England, 36. 

Edwards, Jonathan, character, 183 ; 
revival work, 190. 

Eliot, John, the Indian missionary, 
170, 189. 

Elizabeth, queen of England, inter- 
est in American colonization, 37, 
38, 40, 52, 53, 67, 68; English 
commerce under, 104; Puritanism 
under, 114, 115. 

England, attitude towards papal bull 
of partition, 24, 25 ; sends out 
Cabot, 25 ; fishing colony at New- 
foundland, 26 ; early exploration 
and settlements in America, 36- 
44; becomes a great power, 48; 
reasons for final colonization oi 



»9 



290 



Index. 



END 



GOR 



America, 65, 66 ; character of her 

colonists, 53-55 ; her colonial pol- 
icy, 5 1-53 ; the institutions in which 
her colonists were trained, 53-58 ; 
Quaker repression, 165. 

Endicott, John, heads the Massa- 
chusetts colony, 125, 126. 

Eskunos, possible Asiatic origin of, 
2, 3 ; status, 12. 

Exeter, N. H., founded, 152. 

FINNS, in Delaware and Penn- 
sylvania, 221. 

Fisheries at Newfoundland, 26, 36, 
37, 49, 52, 241, 242; in Carolina, 
93 ; in England, 104 ; in New 
England, 113, 114, 124, 130, 151, 
.184, 185. 

Five Nations. See Iroquois. 

Fletcher, Benjamin, governor of 
New York, 206, 207, 210, 276. 

Florida, Spanish exploration of, 27, 
28, 30, 31 : Spanish occupation, 
31, 32, 43, 88, 93 ; French occupa- 
tion, 33, 34, 44, 49, 88; French ex- 
pelled by Spanish, 48; Ogle- 
thorpe's expedition, 262, 278. 

Fort Casimir, Del., 209. 

Fort Christina, 208, 215. See Wil- 
mington, Del. 

Fort Nassau, site of Albany, 197. 

— , on the Delaware, 197, 201, 207, 
208. 

Fort Orange. See Albany. 

Franklin, Benjamin, plan for colonial 
union, 271. 

Frederica, Ga,, founded, 260; at- 
tacked by Spanish, 262. 

" Freemen," term defined, 62. 

French, the, colonies in Florida, 33, 
34, 44, 49, 88 ; causes of failure of 
early colonies, 43, 44 ; early at- 
tempts to colonize Canada, 35, 36 ; 
fishing colony at Newfoundland, 
26, 241, 242 ; Quebec tounded, 36; 
France becomes a great power, 48, 
52 ; colonial policy of, 48-50 ; in- 
fluence on English colonization in 
America, 57; opposition to Eng- 
lish settlement, 47, 206, 207 ; in 
New Amsterdam, 201 ; in Penn- 
sylvania and Delaware, 221 ; con- 
flicts with English in West Indies, 
236-239, 244; holds Acadia, 242, 
243 ; troubles with Hudson's Bay 
Company, 244 ; rivalry of Georgian 
traders. 259, 261. 



French and Indian War, 221, 222, 

274, 275, 284. 

Frobisher, Martin, efforts at Ameri- 
ican colonization, 37, 52 ; resists 
the Armada, 40. 

Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Comte 
de, governor of New France, 251, 
254- 

Fundamental constitutions, devised 
for Carolina, 90, 91, 93, 95. 

Fur-trade, early spread of, 17, 18; 
by Norsemen, 22 ; by other early 
European explorers, 26, 28, 35, 52, 
53 ; of New France, 35, 49, 50, 
247-251, 256-258; by Claiborne, 
76, 77 ; of Georgia, 259, 261 ; of 
Carolina, 93, 104; of Virginia. 104, 
269; of Maryland, 104; of Penn- 
sylvania, 225, 226; of New Am- 
sterdam, n!i ; of New Sweden, 
208, 209; of New York, 19S, 202, 
221, 225, 226, 228; in middle colo- 
nies generally, 232 ; of Connec- 
ticut, 140, 141, 155; of Plymouth, 
122, 124 ; of New Hampshire, 152 ; 
of New England generally, 113 ; 
by Hudson's Bay Company, 243, 
244 ; by American and Northwest 
companies, 244. 



GAM A, Vasco da, reaches India, 
25. 

George II., king of England, name- 
giver for Georgia, 259; grants 
land to Ohio Company, 283. 

Georgia, settlement of, 258-262 ; fur- 
trade, 259, 261 ; expedition against 
Florida Spaniards, 262, 278; be- 
comes a royal province, 263 ; pop- 
ulation (1750), 266; political spirit, 
281. 

Germans, in Georgia, 260, 261, 263 ; 
in North Carolina, 97 ; in Virginia, 
269 ; in Maryland, 266; in Penn- 
sylvania and Delaware, 217, 221, 
222, 225, 229, 230, 274, 277; in 
New York, 221. 

Germany, colonial policy of, 51 ; 
Presbyterian movement in, 115. 

Gomez, Estevan, on the North 
American coast, 27, 28. 1 

Gorges, Sir P'erdinando, early in- I 
terest in American colonization, ij 
41, 66, 150; member of Plymouth 1 
Company, 113, 114; lord propri- \ 
etor of Maine, 150-152,158; allied \. 



Index, 



291 



GOR 



IND 



with Mason in colonizing New 

Hampshire, 125, 152. 
Gorges, Robert, governor-general of 

New England, 122, 132 ; land- 
grants to, 125. 
— , Thomas, deputy-governor of 

Maine, 152. 
Gorton, Samuel, difficulties with 

Rhode Islanders, 160, 161, 164. 
Gosnold, Bartholomew, voyages to 

America, 41, 65, 66, 69, 71. 
Green Bay, Wis., Nicolet at, 12,248. 
Green Mountain Beys, origin of, 268. 
Greenland, discovered by Norsemen, 

21 ; Norwegian settlements in, 21- 

23- 

Grenada, Windward Islands, 237. 
Grenadines, the, Windward Islands, 

237- 

Grenville, Sir Richard, leads colony 
to Roanoke, 38-40, 52 ; resists the 
Armada, 40. 

"Guinea," the, in Chesapeake Bay, 
76. 

Gustavus Adolphus, king of Swe- 
den, interest in American coloni- 
zation, 5(, 208. 

Guzman, Nuno Beltran de, founds 
Culiacan, 28, 29; expedition to 
Cibola, 29. 

HADLEY, Mass., shelters the 
regicides, 167. 

Hakluyt, Richard, early English 
chronicler, 37 ; interest in Ameri- 
can colonization, 66, 69. 

Hartford, Conn., founded, 136, 140, 
141 ; raided by Indians, 137 ; the 
charter-oak story, 175; early Dutch 
settlement at, 199; Fletcher's visit, 
276, 277. 

Harvard College founded, 80, 130, 
188 ; aided by New England Con- 
federation, 158 ; social distinctions 
at, iSi. 

Hawkins, Sir John, visits Florida, 
34 ; resists ihe Armada, 40. 

Heath, Sir Robert, first proprietor 
of Carolina, 88. 

Henri IV., king of France, his colo- 
nial policy, 35. 

Henry VII., king of England, re- 
wards Cabot, 25 ; attitude towards 
bull of partition, 36; Navigation 
Acts under, 104. 

— VIII., king of England, interest 
in northwest passage, 36. 



Hoboken, N. J., founded, 199. 

Holland, English Independents in, 
115-117. See Dutch. 

Hooker, Thomas, supports Anne 
Hutchinson, 134; assists in set- 
tling Connecticut, 14 1 ; as a consti- 
tution-maker, 143; character, 183. 

Hopi Indians, Spanish with, 29, 30. 

Howard of Effingham, Lord, Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, 79. 

Hudson Bay, exploration of, 4 ; ab- 
origines of, 9, 12 ; early French 
visits, 247, 24S. 

Hudson, Hendrik, discovers Hud- 
son River, 44, 50, 125, 196. 

— River, discovered by Hudson, 50, 
125, 196; early Dutch trade on, 
iiS; as a highway for trade, ex- 
ploration, and Indian war-parties, 
4, 5. 8, 155, 202, 219, 220, 255; 
named in London Company's 
charter, 66 ; Pilgrim land-grant 
on, 197; early settlements on, 221 ; 
patroons' estates on, 198-200, 223, 
227 ; Dutch attempt to exclude 
English from, 199, 200. 

Hudson's Bay Company, organized, 
248 ; intercolonial relations, 234; 
historical sketch, 243, 244. 

Huguenots, in Florida, 31-34, 49; 
De Monts' colony, 35, 36; in Bra- 
zil, 44 ; in New France, 49, 252 ; 
in Carolina, 87, 88, 93-95, 97, 108 ; 
in Virginia, 8i ; in New York, 221 ; 
in New England, 221. 

Hutchinson, Anne, religious agita- 
tor in Massachusetts, 133-136; 
in Rhode Island. 146, 147 ; her 
adherents in New Hampshire, 152. 



ICELAND, early settlements in, 
21, 22. 

Illinois, canoe portages in, 4 ; abo- 
rigines of, 12; French settlements, 
247. 25.-?- 

Independents, definition of term, 
115 ; in Holland, 115-117. See 
Puritans. 

India, early commerce with Europe, 
23, 24, 66; reached by Portuguese, 
25 ; effect on American explora- 
tion. 26, 27, 50; search for water 
passage to, 42, 196. 

Indian Territory, Southern Indians 
in, II ; early Spanish exploration 
in, 28. 



292 



Index, 



IND 



LEO 



Indians, their origin, 2, 3 ; philologi- 
cal divisions, 9-12 ; characteris- 
tics, 13-16; relations with English 
colonists in general, 17-19, 36, 38- 
43 ; Pequod War, 136, 137 ; Phil- 
ip's War, 14, 170-172, 188 ; rela- 
tions with the Spaniards, 27-32, 
42, 43, 47, 238, 239': with the Por- 
tuguese, 48; with the French, 34, 
35,49, 246-25S; with the Dutch, 
163 ; with Georgia, 259-261 ; with 
Carolina, 88, 89, 277; with Vir- 
ginia, 14, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78, 269, 
280; with Maryland, 83, 86, 277; 
with the South generally, 56, 97; 
with Pennsylvania, 216, 217, 222, 
274, 277; with Delaware, 207-209, 
277; with New Jersey, 211, 214, 
231, 277, 282 ; with New York, 
196, 198-202, 206, 207, 230, 270, 
271, 277; with Connecticut, 140, 
142, 155; with Rhode Island, 160, 
161, 164, 277; with Massachusetts, 
140, 170, 173; with Maine, 172; 
with New England generally, 119, 
120, 133, 136, 137, i-T^-_ 

Ipswich, Mass., Nathaniel Ward at, 
138 ; trial of John Wise, 176. 

Irish, American discoveries by, 21 ; 
in Iceland, 21 ; in Pennsylvania 
and Delaware, 222. 

Iroquois, the, status, 10, 11; hos- 
tility to French, 196, 246, 248-250, 
253 ; allies of Dutch and English, 
196, 200, 207, 256. 

JAMAICA, historical sketch, 240, 

J 241. 

James I., king of England, charters 
London and Plymouth companies, 
66-69, 113; interest in Virginia 
colonization, 74, 75, 81 ; treatment 
of Puritans, 115, 116. 

— II., king of England, colonial 
policy of, 175 ; attitude towards 
New York and New Jersey, 206, 
213, 214; flight, 176. 

— River, exploration of, 26 ; named 
by Jamestown colonists, 70; Hu- 
guenot settlement on, 81. 

Jamestown, Va., settlement of, 70- 
72, 113 : early iron smelting at, 6; 
mtroduction of slaves, 74; Indian 
massacre, 74 ; Puritans at, 76 ; 
burned, 79; Baltimore at, 81 ; as 
capital of Virginia, 98; communal 
proprietorship at, 120. 



Japan, prehistoric vessels from, 1; 
early European attempts to reach, 
42. 

Jesuits, in New France, 36, 253; in 
Maryland, 83 ; in New York, 230; 
explorations in the Northwest, 247. 

Jolliet, Louis, discovery of Missis- 
sippi River, 26, 248. 



T^ ANSAS, crossed by Coronado, 

Kent island, occupied by Claiborne, 
77, 83-85. 

Kentucky, early exploration, 4 ; ab- 
origines of, 9 ; early white settle- 
ments, 269, 283. 

Kidd, William, a noted pirate, 276. 

Kieft, William, governor of New 
Netherlands, 200, 201, 208, 209. 

King George's War, 255, 256, 278. 

King William's War, 253, 254. 



LABRADOR, Norse discovery 
of, 22 ; early English voyages 
to, 37- 

Lake Champlain, as a highway for 
exploration and Indian raids, 4, 
220; discovery, 196; New York 
and New Hampshire land claims 
on, 268. 

Lake Erie, aborigines on, 10, ri ; 
discovery, 248. 

Lake George, as a highway for ex- 
ploration, 4. 

Lake Huron, reached by Champlain, 
246, 248. 

Lake Michigan, discovered, 12,248. 

Lake Ontario, aborigines on, 10, 11 ; 
drainage system, 219, 220; dis- 
covered, 248. 

Lake Superior, early fur-trade on, 18 ; 
m Champlain's time, 247; visited 
by RadissonandGrosseilliers, 247, 
248; early French settlement on, 
253- 

La Salle, Chevalier, explorations of, 
248. 

Laud. Archbishop, represses dissent 
in Massachusetts, 131 ; in prison, 
158. 

Leeward Islands, English colonies 
on, 237, 238. 

Leisler, Jacob, heads a revolution in 
New York, 206. 

Leon, Ponce de, explores Florida, 27. 



Index. 



293 



LER 



MAS 



L^ry, Baron de, colonizing attempt 
of, 35- 

Locke, John, his constitution for the 
Carolinas, 58, go, 91, 93, 95. 

London Company, chartered, 66, 
113; settles Virginia, 69-74, 81; 
criticised by James I., 74 ; grant 
to the Pilgrims, 116, 117; charter 
annulled, 74. 

Long Island, Block's visit, 196; Wal- 
loon settlement, igS; conflicts be- 
tween Dutch and English, 163, 
202 ; Connecticut wins a part, 163 ; 
religion on, 229, 230; crime on, 

Long Parliament, the, Virginia under, 
76; Navigation Act of, 105; rela- 
tion to Massachusetts, 132. 

Louis XIV., king of France, his 
colonial policy, 49, 251-253. 

Louisburg, captured by the English, 
255, 278. 

Ludwell, Philip, governor of South 
Carolina, 94 ; and of reunited 
Carolina, 94. 

Lutherans, in middle colonies, 230. 

Louisiana, early French settlement 
of, 248. 

Lower California, early Spanish ex- 
ploration of, 28, 29, 31. 



MAINE, De Monts' colony, 36 ; 
visited by Gosnold and Pring, 
41 ; Gorges' proprietorship, 150, 
iS't 173 ■> characteristics, 150; not 
in the New England Confederation, 
157) 158; absorbed by Massachu- 
setts, 152, 173, 174; Indian up- 
rising, 172, 188 ; rule of Andros, 
175 ; in King William's War, 177, 
254; river system, 179; commerce, 
185; agriculture 186; education, 
188; population (1700) 180,(1754) 
265 ; boundary established, 26S. 

Maldonado, Lorenzo Ferrer de, on 
the Pacific coast, 28. 

Manhattan Island, Block's visit, 196; 
early settlement, 197, 198. See 
New York City. 

Marquette, Father Jacques, on Mis- 
sissippi River, 26, 248. 

Martha's Vineyard, Indian mission- 
ary efforts at,' 170. 

Maryland, origin of name, 82 ; set- 
tlement, 76, 81-84 ; landed estates, 
58; judiciary, 60; during English 



Revolution, 84, 85 ; development, 
86, 87 ; becomes a royal province, 
61, 87 ; Claiborne's quarrel , 76, 77 ; 
geography, 96 ; character of colon- 
ists, 97 ; its capital, 98 ; occupa- 
tions, 102 ; religion, 102, 108; com» 
merce, 103, 104 ; tobacco-raising, 
103 ; William and Mary's College, 
103 ; witchcraft trials, 192 ; boun- 
dary disputes, 209, 217, 26S ; set- 
tlers patronize Pennsylvania mills, 
225; represented in colonial con- 
gress, 270; Indian affairs, 83, 86, 
277 ; influence of Virginia ideas 
on, 280; political spirit, 280; pop- 
ulation (16S8) 97, (1763) 266. 

Mason, Charles, runs " Mason and 
Dixon line," 268. 

— , John, colonizing efforts in New 
Hampshire, 125, 150, 152, 153, 
277. 

— , Capt. John, m Pequod War, 137, 
142. 

Massachusetts, settlement, 124-127, 
144; suffrage qualifications, 61, 62, 
167; social distinctions, 59; Har- 
vard College founded, 80; inter- 
nal dissensions, 129-132 ; religious 
troubles, 132-136, 146, 152 ; inter- 
est in Pequod War, 136, 137; 
laws, 137-139; characteristics, 139, 
140 ; the Watertown protest, 62 ; 
emigration to Connecticut, 140- 
142 ; emigration to Rhode Island, 
147 ; interest in the Gorton case, 
160, 164; absorbs New Hamp)- 
shire, 152, 153, 173: absorbs Ply-, 
mouth, 124, 176; annexes land in 
Connecticut and Maine, 173; in> 
fiuence in the Confederation, 155- 
157, 164; independent attitude to- 
wards England, 15S, 159, 161 ; 
jealousy of king Charles, 173 ; 
under the royal commissioners, 
167, 168 ; charter annulled, 131, 
132, 169, 174, 175; becomes a 
royal province, 175; rule of An- 
dros, 175, 176; the Presbyterian 
movement, 162 ; attitude in war 
with New Netherlands, 163, 1641 
disputes Connecticut ship-toll, 164, 
repression of Quakers, 165, 166, 
169; Philip's War, 170-172, 188; 
absorbs Acadia, 176 ; new charter, 
176, 177; population, {1700) 180, 
(1754) 265 ; slavery, 182, 272, 275; 
iron mining, 184 ; manufactureS| 



294 



Index, 



MAS 



NEW 



184; fishenes, 184; ship-building 
and commerce, 185 ; agriculture, 
186; witchcraft delusion, 190-192; 
boundary disputes, 267, 268 ; rep- 
resented in second colonial con- 
gress, 270; Phipps's term, 275, 
276; Bellomont's term, 207, 276; 
loses New Hampshire, 277 ; paper 
money, 278, 279. 
Massachusetts Bay, visited by Rober- 
val, 33 ; early settlements on, 122, 
124, 127. 

— Company, chartered, 125 ; re- 
moves to America, 126, 127 ; char- 
ter annulled, 131, 132, 169, 174, 

Massasoit, head-chief of Pokano- 
kets, 121, 170. _ 

Mather, Cotton, in witchcraft trials, 
191, 192. 

— , Increase, influence in Massachu- 
setts politics, 176, 177. 

Maverick, Samuel, early Massachu- 
setts settler, 122, 150; royal com- 
missioner, 167. 

" Mayflower," voyage of, 36, 117, 
118, 142, 197. 

Melendez de Aviles, Pedro, his mas- 
sacre of Huguenots in Florida, 34. 

Mexico, aborigines of, 8 ; Spanish 
conquest of, 8, 11, 27-31, 42, 47; 
Spanish colonies, 31, 32. 

— Gulf of, Spanish explorations of, 
4, 27; aborigines of, 9, n ; Span- 
ish possessions on, 43. 

Middletown, N. J., founded, 211. 

Milford, Conn., founded, 145. 

Mining, Spanish efforts at, 28-30; 
early English efforts, 6, 37, 39, 41 ; 
in Virginia, 6, 69, 71, 269; in New 
England, 180 ; in Pennsylvania, 
219, 225. 

Minuit, Peter, founds New Amster- 
dam, 198 ; in employ of the 
Swedes, 201, 208. 

Mississippi River, portage-routes, 4 ; 
geography of basin, 6, 7; abori- 
giwes of valley of, 9-12 ; discov- 
ered by De Soto, 31, 44; French 
Teaching out for the, 47 ; seen by 
Radisson and Grosseilliers, 247; 
seen by Jolliet and Marquette, 26, 
248; early trade on, 18; drainage 
system, 219; La Salle on the, 248 ; 
early French settlements on, 253 ; 
as an element in French-English 
boundary disputes, 256. 



Mohawk Indians, status, 10, 11. 
Mohican Indians, status, 9, 10. 
Montreal, Cartier at, 32 ; Ghana* 

plain's visit, 35 ; founded, 246. 
Montserrat, Leeward Islands, 237^ 

23S. 
Moravians, in North Carolina, 97; 

in Pennsylvania, 229 ; in Georgia, 

261. 
Morton, Thomas, at Merrymount, 

122, I27._ 

Mound-builders, 12. 



■]\T ANTASKET, Mass., founded, 

Narragansett Bay, early settlements 
on, 133, 146, 159, 161 ; Philip's 
War on, 171. 

Narragansett Indians, status, 9, 10 ; 
troubles with whites, 136, 137, 
164; in Philip's War, 170. 

Narvaez, Pamphilo de, in Florida, 
II, 28, 30, 47. 

Natchez Indians, 9. 

Navigation Acts, historical sketch of, 
104-106 ; effect in South Carolina, 
94 ; in Virginia, 78, 80, 280 : in 
Maryland, 86; in Pennsylvania, 
281 ; in the Jerseys, 231 ; in New 
York, 232; in Massachusetts, 173, 
279, 280; in New England gene- 
rally, 184; in the West Indies, 
235, 236 ; one of the causes of the 
Revolution, 279. 

Nevis, Leeward Islands, 237, 238. 

New Amsterdam, founded, 198; 
Kieft's term, 208, 209; Stuyve- 
sant's term, 201,209; captured by 
English, 168, 202, 203 ; becomes 
New York, 203 ; fur-trade of, 253. 
See Dutch. 

Newark, N. J., founded, 211. 

New Brunswick, De Monts' colony 
in, 36. 

Newcastle, Del., founded, 202, 215 ; 
characteristics, 228. 

New England, geography of, 5, 6, 
179, 180 ; early mining, 6; named 
by Smith, 72. 113, 114; popula- 
tion, (i6go) 253, (1700) 180, i8r, 
((700-1750) 265; social distinc- 
tions, 58, 181, 182; slavery, 182; 
occupations, 182-184; manufac- 
tures, 184; fisheries and ship* 



htdex. 



295 



NEW 



NEW 



building, 185 ; commerce, 77, 164, 
185, 186, 234, 235; towns, 186; 
education, 188; crime, iSS; re- 
ligion, 189, 190, 194 ; witchcraft 
delusion, 190-192; life and man- 
ners, 187; political conditions, 192- 
194, 2S2 ; repression of Quakers, 
165, 166; formation of the con- 
federation, 156; decadence of the 
confederation, 169 ; in the hands of 
the Lords of Trade, 173 ; in Queen 
Anne's War, 255; in King 
George's War, 255, 256; ideas of 
versus Virginia ideas, 280, 281. 

New England, Council for, char- 
tered, 60. 

Newfoundland, Spaniards at, 28; 
early European fishermen at, 36, 
37» 49> 52 ; early French visits, 32, 
33 ; claimed by England, 44 ; Balti- 
more's colony, 81 ; intercolonial 
relations, 234, 235 ; in King Wil- 
liam's War, 254; historical sketch, 
241,242,244. 

New France, founded, 36; Louis 
XIV. 's policy towards, 49, 50; 
Champlain fights the Iroquois, 
196 ; early settlements of, 246, 247 ; 
exploration of the Northwest, 
247-249 ; ambition for territorial 
aggrandizement, 155 ; contests with 
the Enghsh, 220, 234, 252-254, 274, 
275) 277, 27S; in Queen Anne's 
War, 254, 255 ; in King George's 
War, 255, 256 ; boundary disputes 
with English, 256 ; line of frontier 
forts, 256; struggle for the Ohio 
valley, 257; social and political 
conditions of, 249-252 ; general 
characteristics, 249, 257, 258; 
causes of decline, 49, 50. 

New Hampshire, Mason's grant, 
150, 152, 173, 277 ; early coloniz- 
ing efforts, 152, 153; soil, 179; 
manufactures, 184 ; agriculture, 
186; characteristics, 153; popula- 
tion (1700), 180, (1754) 265; an- 
nexed by Massachusetts, 61, 153, 
173 ; becomes a royal province, 61, 
J53i 174, 277; reunited to Massa- 
chusetts, 153, 174; ruleof Andros, 
175 ; under William and Mary, 
177 ; in King William's War, 254 ; 
Bellomonl's term, 276; boundary 
disputes, 268 ; represented in sec- 
ond colonial congress, 270. 

New Haven, founded, 144-146, 163 ; 



false "Blue Laws," 146; joins 
New England Confederation, 156; 
in war with New Netherlands, 
163; treatment of Quakers, 166; 
shelters the regicides, 167; ab- 
sorbed by Connecticut, 146, 168, 
i6g ; condition in 1700, 186 ; Yale 
College founded, 188; Tory ele- 
ment in, 189. 

New Jersey, early mining, 6 ; visited 
by Gomez, 28 ; early settlements, 
199, 210-212; covets Delaware, 
210; the two Jerseys, 212, 213; 
reunited as a royal province, 207, 
213, 214 ; claimed by New York, 
205; general characteristics, 214; 
election of county judges, 59, 60 ; 
geography, 219 ; social distinctions, 
222-224; occupations, 224, 225; 
trade and commerce, 225, 226 ; 
life and manners, 227-229; educa- 
tion, 229; religion, 230; political 
conditions, 231, 282; Bellomont's 
term, 276; Indian affairs, 277, 
282; population (1700), 221, ( 1 75p> 
265- 

New Mexico, aborigines of, 8; 
Spanish explorations, 28-30 ; Span- 
ish colonies, 31, 32. 

New Netherland, settlement of, 
196-198; progress, 198-202; Puri- 
tan encroachments, 162-164 ; set- 
tlements on the Delaware, 207- 
209 ; conquered by England, 168, 
202, 203, 210-212. 

New Netherlands Company, 197. 

New Orleans, founded, 248, 256. 

Newport, R. I., old mill at, 23 ; 
settled, 147 ; unites with Ports- 
mouth, 148; chartered, 149. 

New Spain. See Mexico. 

New Sweden, its rise and fall, 201, 
202, 20S, 209. See Swedes. 

New York, early mining, 6 ; geo- 
graphy, 218-220; social classes, 
222-224; occupations, 224, 225; 
trade and commerce, 77, 140, 185, 
225,226; fur-trade, 248-250; life 
and manners, 226-229 ; education, 
229; religion, 229, 230; crime and 
pauperism, 230, 231 ; political con- 
ditions, 231, 232, 282 ; Indian af- 
fairs, 277 ; the Dutch regime, 196- 
202 ; captured by English, 202, 
203; the "duke's laws," 204; 
recaptured by Dutch, 205 ; Eng- 
land again in possession, 205 ; tha 



2g6 



htdex. 



NEW 



PEQ 



rule ot Andros, 205, 206, 213 ; the 
charter of liberties, 205 ; Leisler's 
revolution, 206 ; French designs 
on, 253 ; in King William's War, 
253, 254; in Queen Anne's War, 
25s; Bellomont's term, 276; co- 
lonial congress, 270, 271 ; boundary 
disputes, 267, 268 ; population, 
(1690) 253, (1700) 220, 221, (1750) 
265 ; characteristics, 207. 

New York City, founded by the 
Dutch, 198; early commerce, 226 ; 
characteristics, 227, 228; education 
in, 229 ; political spirit in, 282. 

Nicholson, Sir Francis, governor of 
Virginia, 79, 80, 81, 273 ; deputy- 
governor of New York, 206. 

Normans, American discoveries by, 
21,180; early at Newfoundland, 
26, 49, 241. 

North Carolina, aborigines of, 11 ; 
Raleigh's colonies, 38, 40; named 
in London Company's charter, 
66; origin of, 88,90; first settle- 
ments, 92, 93 ; Culpeper rebellion, 
92 ; character of colonists, 97 ; their 
turbulent spirit, 273, 2S0, 281 ; oc- 
cupations, 102 ; agriculture, 103 ; 
religion, 108, 109 ; mountains of, 
179 ; becomes a royal province, 267; 
boundary established, 268 ; Indian 
affairs, 277 \ Oglethorpe's expedi- 
tion, 278; influence of Virginian 
ideas, 280; population (1763), 266. 

North Virginia Company. See 
Plymouth Company. 

Norwegians, in Iceland, 21. 

Nova Scotia, early French settle- 
ment, 35, 36; Claiborne's trade 
with, 77 ; intercolonial relations, 
234» 235 ; French-English strug- 
les, 252; in King William's War, 
253, 254 ; in Queen Anne's War, 
255; removal of the Acadians, 
243 ; general history, 242-244. 

OCRAKOKE inlet, English col- 
ony on, 38. 

Oglethorpe, James, character, 259; 
founds Georgia, 259, 260 ; cam- 
paign against Florida Spaniards, 
262, 269, 278. 

Ohio Company, its colonization 
efforts, 283. 

Oneida Indians, 10, 11. 

Onondaga Indians, 10, 11. 

Oregon, aborigines of, 12. 



PACIFIC ocean, crossed by pre- 
historic vessels, 2 ; effect on 
American exploration, 26,27,70; 
discovery by Balboa, 26. 

— slope, north-shore flora, 2 ; dlfTi- 
culties of colonizing-, 3 ; geography, 
3, 4, 6, 7; early Spanish explora- 
tions, 28, 29; Spanish missions, 
31 ; Drake's explorations, 37. 

Palatinate War. See King William's 
War. 

Palatines, in Pennsylvania, 230. 

Paper money, governors oppose Its 
issue, 272-274, 278, 289. 

Parish, the, in England, 55, 57; in 
the South, 56. _ 

Patroon system, in New York, 198- 
200 ; in Delaware, 207, 208. 

Pawtuxet, R. I., founded, 160 ; the 
Gorton case, 160, 161. 

Penn Charter School, founded, 229. 

Penn, William, secures grant of 
Delaware, 210; interested in New 
Jersey, 212, 213, 215; secures 
grant of Pennsylvania, 215; his 
government, 216 ; relations with 
Indians, 216, 217; boundary dis- 
putes with Maryland, 86 ; on 
American climate, 220 ; supported 
by aristocrats, 224 ; introduces 
physicians, 225 ; imports Germans, 
230; plan for colonial union, 270; 
death, 217; his heirs resist taxa- 
tion of their lands, 273, 274. 

— , Admiral Sir William, father of 
foregoing, 215, 240. 

Pennsylvania, settlements, 208, 209, 
215; geography, 219; social 
classes, 222-224 ; occupations, 224, 
225 ; trade and commerce, 225, 
226 ; life and manners, 227-229 ; 
education, 229 ; religion, 108, 229, 
230; crime and pauperism, 231; 
political conditions, 232, 280, 281 ; 
annexation of Delaware, 210, 216; 
Penn's constitution and laws, 216 ; 
development, 216, 217 ; witchcraft 
delusion, 192 ; boundary disputes, 
86, 268 ; disagreement between 
governor and assembly, 273,274; 
Indian affairs, 170, 277; paper 
money, 278; characteristics, 217; 
influence of Virginia ideas, 280 ; 
population (1700), 221, 222, (1750) 
265, 266. 

Pequod Indians, uprising of, 136, 
137, 140-142. 



Index. 



297 



PHI 



Philadelphia, first medical school, 
184 ; commerce, 185, 226 ; first in- 
sane hospital, 231 ; arrival of 
Scotch, 269 ; characteristics, 228. 

Philip II., king of Spain, 34. 

Philip's War, in New England, 169- 
172, i88. 

Phipps, Sir William, governor of 
Massachusetts, 177, 275, 276 ; cap- 
tures Port Royal, 254. 

Pilgrims, their staying qualities, 43 ; 
in Holland, 115-117; voyage of 
"Mayflower," 117, iiS; settle- 
ment of Plymouth, 1 18-120; land- 
grant on the Hudson, 197. 

Piracy, English, on Spanish com- 
merce, 94 ; in New York, 206, 
207 ; m the West Indies, 239, 240 ; 
in Virginia, 273 ; in Rhode Island, 
276. 

Plantation, as a political unit, 56, 73. 

Plymouth, England, seat of Plymouth 
Company, 41, 66, 113, 150, 152. 

Plymouth Colony, settled, 1 16-120, 
144; development, 120-124; char- 
acteristics, 123, 124, 139 ; mar- 
riages in, 132; Williams at, 132; 
fur-trade on the Connecticut, 140 ; 
in the Gorton case, 160 ; treatment 
of Quakers, 166 ; receives royal 
commissioners, 169; Indian affairs, 
170-172; joins the confederation, 
156; rule of Andres, 175; ship- 
building, 185 ; merged in Massa- 
chusetts, 124, 176; lesson of the 
colony, 53. 

Plymouth Company, chartered, 66; 
Baltimore a councillor, 81 ; south- 
em boundary, 82 ; relations with 
New Englanders, 120, 122, 124 ; 
sends out Popham colony. 113; 
reorganizes, 114; grant to Massa- 
chusetts Bay Company, 125 ; grant 
to Brook and Say and Sele, 141 ; 
surrenders its charter, 131, 150, 
152. 

Pokanoket Indians, relations with 
Plymouth, 121, 170. 

Poor whites, genesis of, 74, 100, 110. 

Popham, George, heads the Popham 
colony, 113. 

— , Sir John, interest in American 
colonization, 66, 113. 

Population, of Indian tribes, 9-11, 
15 ; excess of, in Europe, 50, 53, 
65; of Virginia (1650-1670), 76, 
(1697) 81 ; of the South generally 



(168S), 97; of Pennsylvania and 
Delaware (1700), 221, 222; of the 
Jerseys (1700), 221 ; of New York 
(1674), 205, (1690) 253, (1700) 220, 
221 ; of Connecticut (1636), 141; 
of Rhode Island (1638), 147 ; of 
Plymouth (1643), i2r; of Massa- 
chusetts (1634), 129; of New Eng- 
land generally ( i6qo), 253, (1700) 
180; of the English colonies gen- 
erally (1700-1750), 265, 266; of 
New France (1690), 253. 

Portage paths, situation and import- 
ance of, 4 ; Indian villages on, 
13- 

Port Royal, Nova Scotia, founded, 
36, 48 ; captured by English, 242, 
243, 252, 254, 278. 

— , S. C, founded by Huguenots- 
33,93; destroyed by Spanish, 93^ 
94. 

Portsmouth, N. H., founded, 152, 
153 ; Tory element at, 189. 

— , R. I., founded, 147 ; declaration, 
147, 148 ; chartered, 149. 

Portuguese, early explorations of, 24, 
25, 27 ; Alexander's bull of parti- 
tion and the, 24 ; fishing colony at 
Newfoundland, 26, 37, 241 ; South 
American colonies of the, 44 ; 
colonial policy of, 48 ; overpopula- 
tion, 50; trade with New Eng- 
land, 185. 

Presbyterians, in England, 115; in 
Scotland, 115, 132, 161; on the 
Continent, 115; in Virginia, 108; 
in Massachusetts, 161, 162; in 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, 221 ; 
in middle colonies generally, 230; 
in the Shenandoah valley, 269. 

Providence, R. I., founded, 133, 146 ; 
religious disturbances at, 148, 159; 
union with Rhode Island, 147 ; the 
compact, 147; chartered, 148, 149; 
population (1638), 147. 

— , Md., former name for Annapolis, 
98. 

Pueblo Indians, status, 8 ; visited by 
Spaniards, 29, 30; Spanish mis- 
sions among, 31, 32. 

Puritans, definition of term, 115 ; in 
Holland, 115, 117; motive of emi- 
gration to America, 46 ; settle New 
England, 1 16-140; gain ascen- 
dency over Massachusetts Presby- 
terians, 162 ; rise to power in 
England, 169 ; in Virginia, 75-781 



298 



Index, 



QUA 



108 ; in South Carolina, 109 ; in 
Maryland, 84-87 ; in middle colo- 
nies, 230. 



QUAKERS, in Carolina, 89, gi, 
95 ; in Virginia, 108 ; in Mary- 
land, 86; in Pennsylvania and 
Delaware, 210, 215-217, 221-225, 
227, 230-232, 274, 277, 281 ; in the 
Jerseys, 212, 213, 221 ; in New 
England, 165, 166, i6g. 

Quebec, Cartier at, 32 ; founded by 
Champlain, 36, 48, 155, 246; capi- 
tal of New France, 251 ; captured 
by English, 252. 

Queen Anne's War, 254, 255, 277, 
278. 



RADISSON, Sieur, early French 
explorer, 247, 248. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, interest in 
American colonization, 37-40, 52, 
65, 68. 88 ; resists the Armada, 
40. 

Randolph, Edward, collector at Bos- 
ton, 173, 174. 

Representation, colonial practice of, 
62; in Virginia, 73 ; in Maryland, 
83, 84 ; in Pennsylvania, 216 ; in 
New Jersey, 211, 212, 214; in 
New Netherlands, 200, 201, 223 ; 
in New York, 204-206; in Con- 
necticut, 143, 145 ; in Plymouth, 
123 ; in Massachusetts, 62, 128. 
129 ; the Watertown case, 128. 

Rhode Island, founded, 133, 135, 
146-150; chartered, 61, 168; reli- 
gious disturbances, 148, 149, 159- 
161, 189, igo, 194 ; Mrs. Hutchin- 
son in, 135 ; treatment of Quakers, 
165, 166; litigation, 182; trade, 
186; education, 188; union of col- 
onies as Providence Plantations, 
148 ; not permitted to join the 
confederation, 157; charter trou- 
bles, 175, 177, 266, 267; boundary 
disputes, 267, 268; represented in 
second colonial congress, 270 ; Bel- 
lomont's visit, 276; Indian affairs, 
277; population (1700), 180 ; char- 
acteristics, 49, 50. 

Ridge Hermits, in Pennsylvania, 
230. 

Rensselaerswyck, N. Y., founded, 
199. 



Roanoke Island, Raleighs colony 

on, 38-40, 88, 119. 

Roberval, Jean Frangois de, attempt 
at French colonization, 32, 33. 

Rocky Mountains, a barrier to colo- 
nization, 3 ; exploration of, 4 ; geog- 
raphy of, 6, 7 ; aborigines of, 8, 9, 
12. 

Ryswick, treaty of, 244, 254. 



SABLE, Isle of, early French colo- 
nies on, 35. 

Saint-Lusson, Sieur de, early French 
explorer, 248. 

Salern, Mass., founded, 125, 126; 
divides, 127 ; Williams at, 132, 
133 ; witchcraft delusion at, 190- 
192. 

Salzburgers, in Georgia, 260, 261. 

San Francisco, harbor of, 3; founded, 
31- 

Santa Fe, N. Max., founded, 31, 32. 

Sault Ste. Marie, early French vis- 
its to, 247, 248 ; French settlement 

^ at, 253. 

Savannah, Ga., founded, 258. 

Say and Sele, Lord, attempts to in- 
troduce hereditary rank, 59, 129; 
Connecticut land-grant to, 141. 

Saybrook, Conn., founded, 136, 137, 
141, 164; raided by Indians, 137. 

Scandinavians, pre-Columbian dis' 
coveries of, 21-23 ; on the Dela- 
ware, 51. 

Schenectady, N. Y., sacked by 
French and Indians, 206. 

Schuylkill River, conflicts between 
Dutch and English on, 200-202. 

Scotch, in Carolina, 93 ; in the Jer- 
seys, 211, 213, 221. 

Scotch-Irish, in Georgia, 261, 263 ; 
ill North Carolina, 97; in Vir- 
ginia, loS; in Shenandoah valley, 
269; in Pennsylvania and Dela- 
ware, 221, 222; in New England, 
:8o; in Nova Scotia, 242. 

Seminoles, status of , 11. 

Seneca Indians, status of, 10, 11. 

Sewall, Samuel, denounces slavery, 
182; in witchcraft trials, 191, 192. 

Shenandoah valley, a home for Scotch 
Presbyterians, 269. 

Ship-building in New England, 146, 
185; Block's vessel, 196 ; in Penn- 
sylvania, 226. 

Shrewsbury, N. J., founded, 211. 



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Index, 



299 



sio 



TOW 



Sioux Indians. See Dakotahs. 

Six Nations. See Iroquois. 

Slavery, in Georgia, 260, 263 ; in 
South Carolina, 99; in Virginia, 
74,81,99; in the South generally, 
98, 99, 103, 110; in the middle 
colonies, 323,224; in New Eng- 
land, ^8, 139, 1S2, 1S5 ; in Illinois, 
192 ; in the West Indies, 234, 239- 
241. 

Smith, Capt. John, attempts to 
reach the Pacific, 26 ; member of 
the London Company, 66 ; expe- 
riences at Jamestown, 70-72; voy- 
age to New England, 113, 114, 150. 

Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, work in South Carolina, 
102 ; in New York . 229 ; in Geor- 
gia, 260. 

Somers, Sir George, member of 
London Company, 66, 69, 72 ; at 
Bermudas, 238. 

Somers's Islands. See Bermudas. 

Sothel, Seth, governor of North 
Carolina, 92, 93 ; of South Caro- 
lina, 94. 

South Carolina as Chicora, 27; set- 
tlement of, 90; landed estates in, 
58 ; occupations, 102 ; religion, 
102, 109 ; trade, 102, 261 ; social 
life, 107 ; becomes a royal prov- 
ince, 267 : boundary established, 
268 ; Indian affairs, 277 ; Ogle- 
thorpe's expedition, 278 ; influence 
of Virginia ideas, 280 ; political 
condition, 281 ; population (1763), 
266. 

Southern Indians, status of, 9, 11. 

Southold, L. I., founded, 145. 

Spaniards, conquest of Mexico and 
Peru, 8, II ; treatment of Indians, 
17; early American discoveries, 
23, 24; the bull of partition, 24, 
36 ; fishermen at Newfoundland, 
25» 37 ; exploration of American 
interior, 27-31; their American 
colonies, 26, 31, 32, 88; character 
of those colonies, 42, 43 ; conflicts 
with France, 32, 34, 93, 94 ; influ- 
ence on English court, 36; con- 
flicts with English, 38, 39, 237, 
239-241, 244; war with Holland, 
196; the Armada, 40; their colo- 
nial policy, 47, 48; overpopulation 
in Spain, 50; causes of failure of 
North American colonies, 42-44 ; 
trade with New England, 1S5 ; 



conflicts with Georgia, 259-262, 
278. 

St. Augustine, Fla., founded, 32, 34, 
94; in Oglethorpe^s campaign, 259, 
261. 

St. Christopher, Leeward Islands, 
2375 238. 

St. John's, Newfoundland, early 
fisheries at, 37. 

St. Lawrence River, gateway to con- 
tinental interior, 4,248; explored 
by Cartier, 32 ; by Champlain, 35, 
36 French claims on, 43, 255, 256; 
settlements on, 246, 249, 250, 253. 

St. Lucia, Windward Islands, 237. 

St. Mary's, Md., founded, 83, 83, 
as the capital, 84, 87, 98. 

St. Vincent, in Windward Islands, 
237- 

Stamford, Conn., founded, 145. 

Stoughton, William, lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, 181 ; in 
witchcraft trials, 191. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, governor of New 
Netherlands, 163, 200, 201, 202, 
203, 209. 

Suffrage in judicial elections, 59; 
general qualifications, 61, 62; in 
Maryland, 86; in New Jersey, 
213, 214; in New Netherlands, 
200 : in New York, 204. 205 ; in 
Connecticut, 143 ; in Massachu- 
setts, 128, 167, 173, 176; in New 
England generally, 193. 

" Susan Constant," the, carries col- 
onists to Virginia, 69. 

Swedes, colonial policy of the, 511 
career of New Sweden, 201, 202, 
20S, 209; in Pennsylvania and 
Delaware, 208-210, 215, 217, 221, 
222; in New Jersey, 211, 221. 

Swiss, in North Carolina, 97. 



TARRATINE Indians, uprising 
in Maine, 188. 

Tennessee, character of early set- 
tlers, 269, 283. 

Texas, early Spanish exploration of, 
28. 

Tinicum, island of, seat of Swedish 
government in America, 208, 215. 

Tobago, Windward Islands, 237. 

Town, the, in England, 55 ; in New 
England, 57, 62, 139, 140, 192, 
193 ; in the middle colonies, 57, 
204, 216. 



300 



hidex* 



TRE 



WIN 



Trenton, N. J., characteristics, 228. 
Trinidad, Windward Islands, 237 
Tuscarora Indians, join the Five 
Nations, 11. 



UNDERBILL, John, in Pe- 
quod War, 137. 

"Union, schemes for colonial. New 
England Confederation, 155-158' 
first colonial congress, 80, 206, 270 ; 
governmental plans, 267, 270; sec- 
ond congress, 270, 271. 

Usselinx, Willem, founds South 
Company of Sweden, 208. 

Utah, aborigines of, 12 

Utrecht, treaty of, 241-243, 255, 256. 



VACA, Cabeza de, in Narvaez's 
expedition, 28, 29. 

Vane, Sir Henry, governor of Massa- 
chusetts, i2g, 134,. 135- 

Van Rensselaer family, 199, 223. 

Vermont, soil, 179; becomes a State, 
2 68. 

Verrazano, John, on the American 
coast, 32, 41. 

Virginia, named by Raleigh, 38 ; 
Raleigh's land grants, 40 ; causes 
of early failures in colonizing, 41- 
44 ; geography, 96 ; settlement, 
69-75 ; character of colonists, 97, 
114; landed estates, 58; judiciary, 
60; suffrage, 61, 62; first assem- 
bly, 62; first charter, 66-69, l^i 
113 ; second charter, 72 ; develop- 
ment, 75-81 ; becomes a royal prov- 
ince, 74; Bacon's rebellion, 78, 
79, go ; occupations, 102 ; com- 
merce, 103, 104; education, 107, 
loS; religion, 108, witch-duck- 
ing, 192; conflicts with Dutch, 
197, 200; Walloons rejected, 198 ; 
piracy, 273 ; Spotswood's term, 
269 ; Nicholson's term, 273 ; in- 
cludes Bermudas, 238 ; Virginia 
ideas versus New England ideas, 
280 ; reaching out to the West, 67, 
283; population (i688),97, (1763) 
266. 

•* Virginia," the early New England 
pinnace, 185. 

Virgin Islands, Leeward group, 237, 
238. 



WALFORD, Thomas, settles at 
Charlestown, 122. 

Walloons, settle in New Nether- 
lands, 198, 201 ; in Delaware, 207, 
208. 

Warwick, Earl of, interest in Ameri- 
can colonization, 37 ; president of 
Council for New England, 141, 
158. 

— , R. I., founded, 148 ; Gorton 
case, 160. 

Washington, George, education of, 
108; opinion of Bermudas, 239. 

Watertown, Mass., founded, 127; 
protest against taxation without 
representation, 62, 128 ; emigration 
to Connecticut, 140. 

Welsh, American discoveries by, 21 ; 
in New England, 180 ; in Penn- 
sylvania and Delaware, 217, 221. 

Wesley, Charles, in Georgia, 262. 

— , John, in Georgia, 262. 

West Indies, aborigines of, 8 ; Span- 
ish conquest of, 43, 47; Spanish 
commerce, 39 ; piracy, 34 ; Portu- 
guese in, 48; Dutch in, 50; trade 
with Southern colonies, 102, 104 ; 
trade with New England, 1S5 ; 
trade with middle colonies, 226; 
intercolonial lelations, 234,235. 

West Jersey, 212-214, 216, 221. 

Westminster, treaty of, 205. 

Wethersfield, Conn., founded, 141 5 
sacked by Indians, 137. 

Weymouth, George, explores New 
England coast, 41, 65. 

Whitefield, George, revival work, 
190, 262. 

William III., king of England, 206, 

253- 

— and Mary, sovereigns of Eng- 
land, proclaimed in the colonies, 
87, 176- 

William and Mary college, chartered, 
80, 81, 103. 

Williams, Roger, character, 132 ; at 
Salem, 132, 133 ; founds Provi- 
dence, 133, 146, 147, 149, 160; ser- 
vices in Pequod War, 136 ; attitude 
towards Quakers, 165. 

Williamsburg, capital of Virginia, 81, 
98. 

Wilmington, Del., founded, 201, 208. 

— , N. C, early French visit Xo, 
32- 

Windsor, Conn., founded, 136, 1371 
140, 141. 



hid ex. 



301 



WIN 



Windward Islands, English colonies, 
236,237. 

Wingfield, Edward Maria, member 
of London Company, 66; presi- 
dent of Jamestown, 70. 

Winslow, Edward, London agent of 
Massachusetts, 131, 132 ; in the 
Gorton case, 160 ; expression of 
colonial independence, i6i. 

Winthrop, John, governor of Massa- 
chusetts, 127, 129, 135, 138. 156; 
expression of colonial indepen- 
dence, 161. 

— , John, Jr., founds Saybrook, 136, 
141 ; governor of Connecticut, 143 ; 
London agent of Connecticut, 168. 

Wisconsin, canoe portages in, 4 ; ab- 
origines of, 12; discovered by 
Nicolet, 26 ; early French explo- 
rations in, 247, 248. 



Witchcraft delusion, at Salem, 190- 
192,275; elsewhere, 190, 192. 

V/ocoken, island of, English colony 
on, 38, 88. 



YALE COLLEGE, founded, 80, 

Yeanians, Sir John, leads colony to 
Carolina; 89, 237 ; governor of 
South Carolina, 93. 

York, Duke of, proprietor of New 
York, 203, 210-212; becomes 
James II., 205, 206, 213; grants 
Delaware to Pennsylvania, 216. 



ZUNI Indians, visited by Span- 
iards, 29, 30. 



\\ 



